A Short History 
of England 



Mary Platt Parmele 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



A SHORT HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

A SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE 

A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY 

A SHORT HISTORY OF SPAIN 



Each 12mo, 60 cents net 



A SHORT 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



BY 
/ 

MARY PLATT PAEMELE 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1898 



[TBB LIBRARY! 
OF CONGRESS 

IwASHlNGTC 



tv '■■ 



Copyright, 1895, bt 
WILLIAM BEVERLEY HARISON 



Copyright, 1898, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 







I RECEIVED- 

CZUI 



Jrid COPY 
1893. 



PREFACE. 

Will the readers of this little work please 
bear in mind the difficulties which must at- 
tend the painting of a very large picture, 
with multitudinous characters and details, 
upon a very small canvas! This book is 
mainly an attempt to trace to their sources 
some of the currents .which enter into the 
life of England to-day ; and to indicate the 
starting-points of some among the various 
threads — legislative, judicial, social, etc. — 
which are gathered into the imposing strand 
of English Civilization in this closing 19th 
Century. 

The reader will please observe that there 
seem to have been two things most closely 
interwoven with the life of England. Re- 



4 PREFACE. 

ligion and money have been the great evolu- 
tionary factors in her development. 

It has been, first, the resistance of the peo- 
ple to the extortions of money by the ruling 
class, and second, the violating of their re- 
ligious instincts, which has made nearly all 
that is vital in English History. 

The lines upon which the government has 
developed to its present Constitutional form 
are chiefly lines of resistance to oppressive 
enactments in these two matters. The 
dynastic and military history of England, 
although picturesque and interesting, is 
really only a narrative of the external 
causes which have impeded the Nation's 
growth toward its ideal of "the greatest 
possible good to the greatest possible num- 
ber." 

M. P. P. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter I. 

FAGS 

Ancient Britain — Caesar's Invasion — Britain a Ro- 
man Province — Boadicea — Lyndin or London — 
Roman Legions Withdrawn — Angles and Saxons — 
Cerdic — Teutonic Invasion — English Kingdoms 
Consolidated 9 

Chapter II. 

Augustine — Edwin — Csedmon — Baeda — Alfred — Can- 
ute — Edward the Confessor — Harold — William the 
Conqueror , 25 

Chapter III. 

"Gilds" and Boroughs — William II. — Crusades — 
Henry I. — Henry II. — Becket's Death — Richard 
I.— John — Magna Charta 40 

Chapter IV. 

Henry III. — Roger Bacon — First True Parliament — 
Edward I. — Conquest of Wales— of Scotland — 
Edward II. —Edward III. — Battle of Crecy— 
Richard II.— Wickliffe 51 



6 CONTENTS. 

Chapter V. 

PAGE 

House of Lancaster — Henry IV. — Henry V. — Agin- 
court — Battle of Orleans — Wars of the Roses — 
House of York— Edward IV.— Richard III.— 
Henry VII. — Printing Introduced 62 

Chapter VI. 

Henry VIII. — Wolsey — Reformation — Edward VI. — 
Mary 73 

Chapter VII. 

Elizabeth — East India Company Chartered — Coloni- 
zation of Virginia — Flodden Field — Birth of Mary 
Stuart — Mary Stuart's Death — Spanish Armada — 
Francis Bacon 82 

Chapter VIII. 

James I.— First New England Colony — Gunpowder 
Plot — Translation of Bible — Charles I. — Archbish- 
op Laud — John Hampden — Petition of Right — 
Massachusetts Chartered — Earl Strafford — Star 
Chamber 97 

Chapter IX. 

Long Parliament — Death of Strafford and Laud — 
Oliver Cromwell — Death of Charles I. — Long 
Parliament Dispersed — Charles II 114 

Chapter X. 

Act of Habeas Corpus — Death of Charles II. — Milton — 
Bunyan— James II. — William and Mary — Battle 
of Boyne 122 



CONTENTS. 7 

Chapter XI. 

PAGB 

Anne— Marlborough — Battle of Blenheim — House of 
Hanover — George I. — George II. — Walpole — Brit- 
ish Dominion in India — Battle of Quebec — John 
Wesley 131 

Chapter XII. 

George III. — Stamp Act — Tax on Tea — American Inde- 
pendence Acknowledged — Impeachment of Hast- 
ings — War of 1812— First English Railway — 
George IV. — William IV. — Reform Bill — Emanci- 
pation of the Slaves 143 

Chapter XIII. 

Victoria — Famine in Ireland — War with Russia— Sepoy 
Rebellion — Massacre at Cawnpore 159 

Chapter XIV. 

Atlantic Cable— Daguerre's Discovery — First World's 
Fair — Death of Albert— Suez Canal — Victoria Em- 
press of India — Disestablishment of Irish Branch 
of Church of England — Present Conditions. ,.,,,, 169 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 

The remotest fact in the history of Eng- 
land is written in her rocks. Geology tells 
us of a time when no sea flowed between 
Dover and Calais, while an unbroken conti- 
nent extended from the Mediterranean to 
the Orkneys. 

Huge mounds of rough stones called 
Cromlechs, have yielded up still another 
secret. Before the coming of the Keltic- 
Aryans, there dwelt there two successive 
races, whose story is briefly told in a few 
human fragments found in these "Crom- 
lechs." These remains do not bear the 
royal marks of Aryan origin. The men 
were small in stature, with inferior skulls ; 
and it is surmised that they belonged to the 
same mysterious branch of the human fam- 



10 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ily as the Basques and Iberians, whose pres- 
ence in Southern Europe has never been 
explained. 

When the Aryan came and blotted out 
these races will perhaps always remain an 
unanswered queston. But while Greece was 
clothing herself with a mantle of beauty, 
which the world for two thousand years has 
striven in vain to imitate, there was lying 
off the North and West coasts of the Euro- 
pean Continent a group of mist-enshrouded 
islands of which she had never heard. 

Obscured by fogs, and beyond the horizon 
of Civilization, a branch of the Aryan race 
known as Britons were there leading lives 
as primitive as the American Indians, dwell- 
ing in huts shaped like beehives, which 
they covered with branches and plastered 
with mud. While Phidias was carving im- 
mortal statues for the Parthenon, this early 
Britisher was decorating his abode with the 
heads of his enemies ; and could those shape- 
less blocks at Stonehenge speak, they 
would, perhaps, tell of cruel and hideous 
Druidical rites witnessed on Salisbury 
Plain, ages ago. 



45 A.d. 
Boadicea 

61 A.D. 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 11 

Eumors of the existence of this people Caesar's 
reached the Mediterranean three or four Ts^T' 
hundred years before Christ, but not until Britain 

. . a Roman 

Caesar s invasion of the Island (55 B.C.) province, 
was there any positive knowledge of them. 

The actual conquest of Britain was not 
one of Caesar's achievements. But from the 
moment when his covetous eagle - eye 
viewed the chalk-cliffs of Dover from the 
coast of Northern Gaul, its fate was sealed. 
The Roman octopus from that moment had 
fastened its tentacles upon the hapless land ; 
and in 45 a.d., under the Emperor Claudius, 
it became a Roman province. In vain did the 
Britons struggle for forty years. In vain 
did the heroic Boadicea (during the reign 
of Nero, 61 a.d.), like Hermann in Germany, 
and Vercingetorix in France, resist the de- 
struction of her nation by the Eomans. In 
vain did this woman herself lead the Brit- 
ons, in a frenzy of patriotism; and when 
the inevitable defeat came, and London was 
lost, with the desperate courage of the bar- 
barian she destroyed herself rather than 
witness the humiliation of her race. 

The stately Westminster and St. Paul's 



12 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

did not look down upon this heroic daughter 
of Britain. London at that time was a 
collection of miserable huts and entrenched 
cattle-pens, which were in Keltic speech 
called the " Fort-on-the-Lake"— or "Llyn- 
din," an uncouth name in Latin ears, which 
gave little promise of the future London, 
the Komans helping it to its final form by 
calling it Londinium. 

But the octopus had firmly closed about 
its victim, whose struggles, before the year 
100 A.D., had practically ceased. A civili- 
zation which made no effort to civilize was 
forcibly planted upon the island. Where 
had been the humble village, protected by 
a ditch and felled trees, there arose the 
walled city, with temples and baths and 
forum, and stately villas with frescoed 
walls and tessellated floors, and hot-air 
currents converting winter into summer. 

So Chester, Colchester, Lincoln, York, 
London, and a score of other cities were set 
like jewels in a surface of rough clay, the 
Britons filling in the intervening spaces 
with their own rude customs, habits, and 
manners. Dwelling in wretched cabins 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 13 

thatched with straw and chinked with mud, 
they still stubbornly maintained their own 
uncouth speech and nationality, while they 
helplessly saw all they could earn swallowed 
up in taxes and tributes by their insatiate 
conquerors. The Keltic - Gauls might, if 
they would, assimilate this Eoman civiliza- 
tion, but not so the Keltic-Britons. 

The two races dwelt side by side, but sep- 
arate (except to some extent in the cities), 
or, if possible, the vanquished retreated be- 
fore the vanquisher into Wales and Corn- 
wall ; and there to-day are found the only 
remains of the aboriginal Briton race in 
England. 

The Koman General Agricola had built in 
78 a.d. a massive wall across the North of 
England, extending from sea to sea, to pro- 
tect the Roman territory from the Picts and 
Scots, those wild dwellers in the Northern 
Highlands. It seems to us a frail barrier 
to a people accustomed to leaping the rocky 
wall set by nature between the North and the 
South ; and unless it were maintained by a 
line of legions extending its entire length, 
they must have laughed at such a defence ; 



14 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

even when duplicated later, as it was, by 
the Emperor Hadrian, in 120 a.d. ; and still 
twice again, first by Emperor Antoninus, 
and then by Severus. For the swift trans- 
portation of troops in the defensive warfare 
always carried on with the Picts and Scots, 
magnificent roads were built, which linked 
the Eomanized cities together in a network 
of splendid highways. 

There were more than three centuries of 
peace. Agriculture, commerce, and indus- 
tries came into existence. " Wealth accumu- 
lated," but the Briton "decayed" beneath 
the weight of a splendid system, which had 
not benefited, but had simply crushed out 
of him his original vigor. Together with 
Eoman villas, and vice, and luxury, had 
also come Christianity. But the Briton, if 
he had learned to pray, had forgotten how 
to fight, — and how to govern; and now the 
Eoman Empire was perishing. She needed 
all her legions to keep Alaric and his Goths 
out of Eome. 
Roman In 410 a.d. the fair cities and roads were 

withdrawn, deserted. The tramp of Eoman soldiers 
410 a.d. was heard no more in the land, and the 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 15 

enfeebled native race were left helpless and 
alone to fight their battles with the Picts 
and Scots; — that fierce Briton offshoot 
which had for centuries dwelt in the fast- 
nesses of the Highlands, and which swarmed 
down upon them like vultures as soon as 
their protectors were gone. 

In 446 a.d. the unhappy Britons invited 
their fate. Like their cousins, the Gauls, 
they invited the Teutons from across the sea 
to come to their rescue, and with result 
far more disastrous. 

When the Frank became the champion 
and conqueror of Gaul, he had for centuries 
been in conflict or in contact with Eome, 
and had learned much of the old Southern 
civilizations, and to some extent adopted 
their ideals. Not so the Angles and Saxons, 
who came pouring into Britain from Schles- 
wig-Holstein. They were uncontaminated 
pagans. In scorn of Eoman luxury, they 
set the torch to the villas, and temples and 
baths. They came, exterminating, not as- 
similating. The more complaisant Frank 
had taken Eomanized, Latinized Gaul just 
as he found her, and had even speedily 



16 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

adopted her religion. It was for Gaul a 
change of rulers, but not of civilization. 

But the Angles and Saxons were Teutons 
of a different sort. They brought across 
the sea in those "keels" their religion, 
their manners, habits, nature, and speech; 
and they brought them for use (just as the 
Englishman to-day carries with him a little 
England wherever he goes) . Their religion, 
habits, and manners they stamped upon the 
helpless Britons. In spite of King Arthur, 
and his knights, and his sword "Excalibur," 
they swiftly paganized the land which had 
been for three centuries Christianized ; and 
their nature and speech were so ground 
into the land of their adoption that the3 r 
exist to-day wherever the Anglo - Saxon 
abides. 

From Windsor Palace to the humblest 
abode in England (and in America) are to 
be found the descendants of these dominat- 
ing barbarians who flooded the British Isles 
in the 5th Century. What sort of a race 
were they? Would we understand England 
to-day, we must understand them. It is not 
sufficient to know that they were bearded 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 17 

and stalwart, fair and ruddy, flaxen-haired 
and with cold blue eyes. We should know 
what sort of souls looked out of those clear 
cold eyes. What sort of impulses and 
hearts dwelt within those brawny breasts. 

Their hearts were barbarous, but loving 
and loyal, and nature had placed them in 
strong, vehement, ravenous bodies. They 
were untamed brutes, with noble instincts. 

They had ideals too; and these are re- 
vealed in the rude songs and epics in which 
they delighted. Monstrous barbarities are 
committed, but always to accomplish some 
stern purpose of duty. They are cruel in 
order to be just. This sluggish, ravenous, 
drinking brute, with no gleam of tenderness, 
no light-hearted rhythm in his soul, has yet 
chaotic glimpses of the sublime in his ear- 
nest, gloomy nature. He gives little promise 
of culture, but much of heroism. There is, 
too, a reaching after something grand and 
invisible, which is a deep religious instinct. 
All these qualities had the future English 
nation slumbering within them. Marriage 
was sacred, woman honored. All the mem- 
bers of a family were responsible for the 



18 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

acts of one member. The sense of obliga- 
tion and of responsibility was strong and 
binding. 

Is not every type of English manhood 
explained by such an inheritance? From the 
drunken brawler in his hovel to the English 
gentleman "taking his pleasures sadly," all 
are accounted for; and Hampden, Milton, 
Cromwell, John Bright, and Gladstone ex- 
isted potentially in those fighting, drinking 
savages in the 5th Century. 

Their religion, after 150 years, was ex- 
changed for Christianity. Time softened 
their manners and habits, and mingled new 
elements with their speech. But the Anglo- 
Saxon nature has defied the centuries and 
change. A strong sense of justice, and a 
resolute resistance to encroachments upon 
personal liberty, are the warp and woof 
of Anglo-Saxon character yesterday, to-day 
and forever. The steady insistence of these 
traits has been making English History for 
precisely 1,400 years, (from 495 to 1895,) 
and the history of the Anglo-Saxon race in 
America for 200 years as well. 

Our ancestors brought with them from 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 19 

their native land a simple, just, Teutonic 
structure of society and government, the 
base of which was the individual free-man. 
The family was considered the social unit. 
Several families near together made a town- 
ship, the affairs of the township being set- 
tled by the male freeholders, who met 
together to determine by conference what 
should be done. 

This was the germ of the "town-meet- 
ing" and of popular government. In the 
" witan, " or " wise men, " who were chosen as 
advisers and adjusters of difficult questions, 
exist the future legislature and judiciary, 
while in the king, or "alder-mann" 
(" Ealdorman") we see not an oppressor, 
but one who by superior age and experience 
is fitted to lead. Cerdic, first Saxon king, 
was simply Cerdic the "Ealdorman" or 
" Alder-mann." 

They were a free people from the begin- 
ning. They had never bowed the neck to 
yoke, their heads had never bent to tyranny. 
Better far was it that Roman civilization, 
built upon Keltic-Briton foundation, should 
have been effaced utterly, and that this 



20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

strong untamed humanity, even cruel and 
terrible as it was, should replace it. Koman 
laws, language, literature, faith, manners, 
were all swept away. A few mosaics, coins, 
and ruined fragments of walls and roads are 
all the record that remains of 300 years of 
occupation. 

And the Briton himself — what became of 
him? In Ireland and Scotland he lingers 
still; but, except in Wales and Cornwall, 
England knows him no more. Like the 
American Indian, he was swept into the re- 
mote, inaccessible corners of his own land. 
It seemed cruel, but it had to be. Would 
we build strong and high, it must not be 
upon sand. We distrust the Kelt as a 
foundation for nations as we do sand for 
our temples. France was never cohesive 
until a mixture of Teuton had toughened 
it. Genius makes a splendid spire, but a 
poor corner-stone. It would seem that the 
Keltic race, brilliant and richly endowed, 
was still unsuited to the world in its higher 
stages of development. In Britain, Gaul, 
and Spain they were displaced and absorbed 
by the Germanic races. And now for long 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 21 

centuries no Keltic people of importance 
has maintained its independence ; the Gaelic 
of the Scotch Highlands and of Ireland, the 
native dialect of the Welsh and of Brittany, 
being the scanty remains of that great fam- 
ily of related tongues which once occupied 
more territory than German, Latin, and 
Greek combined. The solution of the Irish 
question may lie in the fact that the Irish 
are fighting against the inevitable; that 
they belong to a race which is on its way to 
extinction, and which is intended to survive 
only as a brilliant thread, wrought into the 
texture of more commonplace but more en- 
during peoples. 

It was written in the book of fate that a 
great nation should arise upon that green 
island by the North Sea. A foundation of 
Eoman cement, made by a mingling of Kel- 
tic-Briton, and a corrupt, decayed civiliza- 
tion, would have altered not alone the fate 
of a nation, but the History of the World. 
Our barbarian ancestors brought from 
Schleswig-Holstein a rough, clean, strong 
foundation for what was to become a new 
type of humanity on the face of the earth. 



22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

A Humanity which was not to be Persian 
nor Greek, nor yet Koman, but to be nour- 
ished on the best results of all, and to be- 
come the standard-bearer for the Civilization 
of the future. 
Teutonic The Jutes came first as an advance-guard 

Invasion, 

449 a.d. of the great Teuton invasion. It was but 
the prologue to the play when Hengist and 
Horsa, in 449 a.d., occupied what is now 
Kent, in the Southeast extremity of Eng- 
land. It was only when Cerdic and his 
Saxons placed foot on British soil (495 a.d.) 
that the real drama began. And when the 
Angles shortly afterward followed and oc- 
cupied all that the Saxons had not appro- 
priated (the north and east coast), the actors 
were all present and the play began. The 
Angles were destined to bestow their name 
upon the land (Angle-land), and the Saxons 
a line of kings extending from Cerdic to 
Victoria. 

Covetous of each other's possessions, these 
Teutons fought as brothers will. Exter- 
minating the Britons was diversified with 
efforts to exterminate one another. Seven 
kingdoms, four Anglian and three Saxon, 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 23 

for 300 years tried to annihilate each other; 
then, finally submitting to the strongest, 
united completely, — as only children of one 
household of nations can do. The Saxons 
had been for two centuries dominating more 
and more until the long struggle ended — 
behold, Anglo-Saxon England consolidated English 
under one Saxon king! The other king- consolidated 
doms — Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, 
Kent, Sussex, and Essex — surviving as 
shires and counties. 

In 802 a.d., while Charlemagne was weld- 
ing together his vast and composite empire, 
the Saxon Egbert (Ecgberht), descendant of 
Cerdic (the " Alder-mann"), was consolidat- 
ing a less imposing, but, as it has proved, 
more permanent kingdom ; and the History 
of a United England had begun. 

While Christianity had been effaced by 
the Teuton invasion in England, it had sur- 
vived among the Irish-Britons. Ireland was 
never paganized. With fiery zeal, her peo- 
ple not alone maintained the religion of the 
Cross at home, but even drove back the 
heathen flood by sending missionaries 
among the Picts in the Highlands, and into 



24 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

other outlying territory about the North 
Sea. 

Pope Gregory the Great saw this Keltic 
branch of Christendom, actually outrunning 
Latin Christianity in activity, and he was 
spurred to an act which was to be fraught 
with tremendous consequences. 



CHAPTER II. 

The same spot in Kent (the isle of Augustine 

Came, 597. 

Thanet), which had witnessed the landing 
of Hengist and Horsa in 449, saw in 597 
a band of men, calling themselves "Stran- 
gers from Rome," arriving under the lead- 
ership of Augustine. 

They moved in solemn procession toward 
Canterbury, bearing before them a silver 
cross, with a picture of Christ, chanting in 
concert, as they went, the litany of their 
Church. Christianity had entered by the 
same door through which paganism had 
come 150 years before. 

The religion of Wodin and Thor had 
ceased to satisfy the expanding soul of the 
Anglo-Saxon; and the new faith rapidly 
spread ; its charm consisting in the light it 
seemed to throw upon the darkness encom- 
passing man's past and future. 



26 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



Csedmon 

Father 

of English 

Poetry. 



An aged chief said to Edwin, king of Nor- 
thumbria, (after whom "Edwins-borough" 
was named,) "Oh, King, as a bird flies 
through this hall on a winter night, coming 
out of the darkness, and vanishing into the 
darkness again, even so is our life! If 
these strangers can tell us aught of what 
is beyond, let us hear them." 

King Edwin was among the first to espouse 
the new religion, and in less than one hun- 
dred years the entire land was Christianized. 

With the adoption of Christianity a new 
life began to course in the veins of the 
people. 

Csedmon, an unlettered Northumbrian 
peasant, was inspired by an Angel who 
came to him in his sleep and told him to 
"Sing." "He was not disobedient unto the 
heavenly vision." He wrote epics upon all 
the sacred themes, from the creation of the 
World to the Ascension of Christ and the 
final judgment of man, and English litera- 
ture was born. 

" Paradise Lost," one thousand years later, 
was but the echo of this poet-peasant, who 
was the Milton of the 7th Century. 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 27 

In the 8th Century, Baeda (the venerable venerable 
Beda), another Northumbrian, who was Aifred.^n. 
monk, scholar, and writer, wrote the first 
History of his people and his country, and 
discoursed upon astronomy, physics, me- 
teorology, medicine, and philosophy. These 
were but the early lispings of Science; but 
they held the germs of the " British Associa- 
tion" and of the "Koyal Society;" for as 
English poetry has its roots in Caedmon, so 
is English intellectual life rooted in Baeda. 

The culmination of this new era was in 
Alfred, who came to the throne of his 
grandfather, Egbert, in 871. 

He brought the highest ideals of the 
duties of a King, a broad, statesmanlike 
grasp of conditions, an unsullied heart, and 
a clear, strong intelligence, with unusual 
inclination toward an intellectual life. 

Few Kings have better deserved the title 
of "great." With him began the first con- 
ception of National law. He prepared a 
code for the administration of justice in his 
Kingdom, which was prefaced by the Ten 
Commandments, and ended with the Golden 
Rule ; while in his leisure hours he gave co- 



28 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

herence and form to the literature of the 
time. Taking the writings of Csedmon, 
Bseda, Pope Gregory, and Boethius; trans- 
lating, editing, commentating, and adding 
his own to the views of others upon a wide 
range of subjects. 

He was indeed the father not alone of a 
legal system in England, but of her culture 
and literature besides. The people of Wan- 
tage, his native town, did well, in 1849, to 
celebrate the one-thousandth anniversary of 
the birth of the great King Alfred. 

But a condition of decadence was in prog- 
ress in England, which Alfred's wise reign 
was powerless to arrest, and which his 
greatness may even have tended to hasten. 
The distance between the king and the peo- 
ple had widened from a mere step to a 
gulf. When the Saxon kings began to be 
clothed with a mysterious dignity as "the 
Lord's anointed," the people were corres- 
pondingly degraded; and the degradation 
of this class, in which the true strength 
of England consisted, bore unhappy but 
natural fruits. 

A slave or "unfree" class had come with 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 29 

the Teutons from their native land. This 
small element had for centuries now been 
swelled by captives taken in war, and by 
accessions through misery, poverty, and 
debt, which drove men to sell themselves 
and families and wear the collar of ser- 
vitude. The slave was not under the lash ; 
but he was a mere chattel, having no more 
part than cattle (from whom this title is de- 
rived) in the real life of the state. 

In addition to this, political and social 
changes had been long modifying the struc- 
ture of society in a way tending to degrade 
the general condition. As the lesser King- 
doms were merged into one large one, the 
wider dominion of the king removed him 
further from the people; every succeeding 
reign raising him higher, depressing them 
lower, until the old English freedom was lost. 

The "folk -moot" and " Witenagemot"* 
were heard of no more. The life of the 
early English State had been in its " folk- 
moot, "and hence rested upon the individual 
English freeman, who knew no superior but 

* Witenagemot — a Council composed of " Witan" or 
"Wise Men." 



30 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

God, and the law. Now, he had sunk into 
the mere "villein," bound to follow his lord 
to the field, to give him his personal ser- 
vice, and to look to him alone for justice. 
With the decline of the freeman (or of 
popular government) came Anglo - Saxon 
degeneracy, which made him an easy prey 
to the Danes. 

The Northmen were a perpetual menace 
and scourge to England and Scotland. 
There never could be any feeling of perma- 
nent security while that hostile flood was 
always ready to press in through an un- 
guarded spot on the coast. The sea wolves 
and robbers from Norway came devouring, 
pillaging, and ravaging, and then away 
again to their own homes or lairs. Their 
boast was that they "scorned to earn by 
sweat what they might win by blood." But 
the Northmen from Denmark were of a 
different sort. They were looking for 
permanent conquest, and had dreams of 
Empire, and, in fact, had had more or 
less of a grasp upon English soil for 
centuries before Alfred; and one of his 
greatest achievements was driving these 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 31 

hated invaders out of England. In 1013, Danish King's 

,1 1 -, i • /• n ,, 1013 to 1042. 

under the leadership of Sweyn, they once 
more poured in upon the land, and after a 
brief but fierce struggle a degenerate Eng- 
land was gathered into the iron hand of the 
Dane. 

Canute, the son of Sweyn, continued the 
successes of his father, conquering in Scot- 
land Duncan (slain later by Macbeth), and 
proceeded to realize his dream of a great 
Scandinavian empire, which should include 
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and England. 
He was one of those monumental men who 
mark the periods in the pages of History, 
and yet child enough to command the tides 
to cease, and when disobeyed, was so hu- 
miliated, it is said, he never again placed a 
crown upon his head, acknowledging the 
presence of a King greater than himself. 

Conqueror though he was, the Dane was 
not exactly a foreigner in England. The 
languages of the two nations were almost 
the same, and a race affinity took away 
much of the bitterness of the subjugation, 
while Canute ruled more as a wise native 
King than as a Conqueror. 



32 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

But the span of life, even of a founder of 
Empire, is short. Canute's sons were de- 
generate, cruel, and in forty years after the 
Conquest had so exasperated the Anglo-Sax- 
ons that enough of the primitive spirit re- 
turned, to throw off the foreign yoke, and 
the old Saxon line was restored in Edward, 

Edward the known as " the Confessor." 

1043 to 1066. Edward had qualities more fitted to 
adorn the cloister than the throne. He 
was more of a Saint than King, and was 
glad to leave the affairs of his realm in the 
hands of Earl Godwin. This man was the 
first great English statesman who had been 
neither Priest nor King. Astute, powerful, 
dexterous, he was virtual ruler of the King- 
dom until the death of the childless King 
Edward in 1066, when Godwin' s son Harold 
was called to the empty throne. 

Foreign royal alliances have caused no 
end of trouble in the life of Kingdoms. A 
marriage between a Saxon King and a Nor- 
man Princess, in about the year 1000 a.d., 
has made a vast deal of history. This Prin- 
cess of Normandy, was the grandmother of 
the man, who was to be known as " William 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



33 



the CoDqueror." In the absence of a di- 
rect heir to the English throne, made vacant 
by Edward's death, this descent gave a shad- 
owy claim to the ambitious Duke across the 
Channel, which he was not slow to use for 
his own purposes. 

He asserted that Edward had promised 
that he should succeed him, and that Har- 
old, the son of Godwin, had assured him of 
his assistance in securing his rights upon 
the death of Edward the Confessor. A tre- 
mendous indignation stirred his righteous 
soul when he heard of the crowning of 
Harold ; not so much at the loss of the 
throne, as at the treachery of his friend. 

In the face of tremendous opposition and 
difficulties, he got together his reluctant 
Barons and a motley host, actually cutting 
down the trees with which to create a fleet, 
and then, depending upon pillage for sub- 
sistence, rushed to face victory or ruin. 

The Battle of Senlac (or Hastings) has 
been best told by a woman's hand in the 
famous Bayeux Tapestry. An arrow pierced 
the unhappy Harold in the eye, entering the 
brain, and the head which had worn the 



Nonnan 
Conquest, 

1066. 

Death of 

King Harold. 



34 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

crown of England ten short months lay in 
the dust, William, with wrath unappeased, 
refusing him burial. 
wiliiam l, William, Duke of Normandy, was King 
land. 1066. of England. Not alone that. He claimed 
that he had been rightful King ever since 
the death of his cousin Edward the Con- 
fessor; and that those who had supported 
Harold were traitors, and their lands confis- 
cated to the crown. As nearly all had been 
loyal to Harold, the result was that most 
of the wealth of the Nation was emptied into 
William's lap, not by right of conquest, but 
by English law. 

Feudalism had been gradually stifling old 
English freedom, and the King saw himself 
confronted with a feudal baronage, nobles 
claiming hereditary, military, and judicial 
power independent of the King, such as de- 
graded the Monarchy and riveted down the 
people in France for centuries. With the 
genius of the born ruler and conqueror, 
William discerned the danger and its 
remedy. Availing himself of the early 
legal constitution of England, he placed 
justice in the old local courts of the 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 35 

"hundred" and "shire," to which every free- 
man had access, and these courts he placed 
under the jurisdiction of the King alone. In 
Germany and France the vassal owned su- 
preme fealty to his lord, against all foes, even 
the King himself. In England, the tenant 
from this time swore direct fealty to none 
saVe his King. 

With the unbounded wealth at his dis- 
posal, William granted enormous estates to 
his followers upon condition of military ser- 
vice at his call. In other words, he seized 
the entire landed property of the State, and 
then used it to buy the allegiance of the 
people. By this means the whole Nation 
was at his command as an army subject to 
his will; and there was at the same time a 
breaking up of old feudal tyrannies by a 
redistribution of the soil under a new form 
of land tenure. 

The City of London was rewarded for in- 
stant submission by a Charter, signed, — not 
by his name — but his mark, for the Con- 
queror of England (from whom Victoria is 
twenty-fifth remove in descent), could not 
write his name. 



36 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

He built the Tower of London, to hold the 
City in restraint. Fortress, palace, prison, 
it stands to-day the grim progenitor of the 
Castles and Strongholds which soon frowned 
from every height in England. 

He took the outlawed, despised Jew under 
his protection ; not as a philanthropist, but 
seeing in him a being who was always 
accumulating wealth, which could in any 
emergency be wrung from him by torture, 
if milder measures failed. Their hoarded 
treasure flowed into the land. They built 
the first stone houses, and domestic archi- 
tecture was created. Jewish gold built Cas- 
tles and Cathedrals, and awoke the slumber- 
ing sense of beauty. Through their connec- 
tion with the Jews in Spain and the East, 
knowledge of the physical sciences also 
streamed into the land, and an intellectual 
life was created, which bore fruit a century 
and a half later in Roger Bacon. 

All these things were not done in a day. 
It was twenty years after the Conquest that 
William ordered a survey and valuation of 

'Domesday 

Book." all the land, which was recorded in what 
was known as "Domesday Book," that he 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 37 

might know the precise financial resources 
of his kingdom, and what was due him on 
the confiscated estates. Then he summoned 
all the nobles and large landholders to meet 
him at Salisbury Plain, and those shapeless Meeting at 
blocks at " Stonehenge" witnessed a strange P1 ai D s lose, 
scene when 60,000 men there took solemn 
oath to support William as King even 
against their own lords. With this splen- 
did consummation his work was practically 
finished. He had, with supreme dexterity 
and wisdom, blended two Civilizations, had 
at the right moment curbed the destructive 
element in feudalism, and had secured to 
the Englishman free access to the surface 
for all time. Thus the old English freedom 
was in fact restored by the Norman Con- 
quest, by direct act of the Conqueror. 

William typified in his person a transi- 
tional time, the old Norse world, mingling 
strangely in him with the new. He was 
the last outcome of his race. Norse daring 
and cruelty were side by side with gentle- 
ness and aspiration. No human pity tem- 
pered his vengeance. When hides were 
hung on the City Walls at Alengon, in insult 



38 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

to his mother (the daughter of a tanner), he 
tore out the eyes, cut off the hands and feet 
of the prisoners, and threw them over the 
walls. When he did this, and when he 
refused Harold's body a grave, it was the 
spirit of the sea- wolves within him. But it 
was the man of the coming Civilization, who 
could not endure death by process of law in 
his Kingdom, and who delighted to discourse 
with the gentle and pious Anselm, upon the 
mysteries of life and death. 

The indirect benefits of the Conquest, 
came in enriching streams from the older 
civilizations. As Eome had been heir to 
the accumulations of experience in the an- 
cient Nations, so England, through France 
became the heir to Latin institutions, and 
was joined to the great continuous stream 
of the World's highest development. Fresh 
intellectual stimulus renovated the Church. 
Eoman law was planted upon the simple 
Teuton system of rights. Every depart- 
ment in State and in Society shared the ad- 
vance, while language became refined, flex- 
ible, and enriched. 

This engrafting with the results of an- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 39 

tiquity, was an enormous saving of time, in 
the development of a nation ; but it did not 
change the essential character of the Anglo- 
Saxon, nor of his speech. The ravenous 
Teuton could devour and assimilate all these 
new elements and remain essentially un- 
changed. The language of Bunyan and of the 
Bible is Saxon ; and it is the language of the 
Englishman to-day in childhood and in ex- 
tremity. A man who is thoroughly in 
earnest — who is drowning — speaks Saxon. 
Character, as much as speech, remains un- 
altered. There is small trace of the Nor- 
man in the House of Commons, or in the 
meetings at Exeter Hall, or in the home, or 
life of the people anywhere. 

The qualities which have made England 
great were brought across the North Sea in 
those "keels" in thp 5th Century. The 
Anglo-Saxon put on the new civilization and 
institutions brought him by the Conquest, as 
he would an embroidered garment ; but the 
man within the garment, though modified by 
civilization, has never essentially changed. 



CHAPTER III. 

It is not in the exploits of its Kings but 
in the aspirations and struggles of its people, 
that the true history of a nation is to be 
sought. During the rule and misrule of the 
two sons, and grandson, of the Conqueror, 
England was steadily growing toward its 
ultimate form. 

As Society outgrew the simple ties oi 
blood which bound it together in old Saxon 
England, the people had sought a larger 
protection in combinations among fellow 
freemen, based upon identity of occupation. 
Tbe "Qiids." The " Frith-Gilds," or peace Clubs, came 
into existence in Europe during the 9th and 
10th Centuries. They were harshly repressed 
in Germany and Gaul, but found kindly 
welcome from Alfred in England. In their 
mutual responsibility, in their motto, "if any 
misdo, let all bear it," Alfred saw simply 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 41 

an enlarged conception of the "family," 
which was the basis of the Saxon social 
structure ; and the adoption of this idea of a 
larger unity, in combination, was one of the 
first phases of an expanding national life. 
So, after the conquest, while ambitious 
kings were absorbing French and Irish ter- 
ritory or fighting with recalcitrant barons, 
the merchant, craft, and church "gilds" 
were creating a great popular force, which 
was to accomplish more enduring conquests. 

It was in the " boroughs" and in these 
"gilds" that the true life of the nation con- 
sisted. It was the shopkeepers and ar- 
tisans which brought the right of free 
speech, and free meeting, and of equal jus- 
tice across the ages of tyranny. One free- 
dom after another was being won, and the 
battle with oppression was being fought, not 
by Knights and Barons, but by the sturdy 
burghers and craftsmen. Silently as the 
coral insect, the Anglo-Saxon was building 
an indestructible foundation for English 
liberties. 

The Conqueror had bequeathed England wnuam il, 
to his second son, William Eufus, and Nor- 



42 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 



The Crusades 

Commenced, 

1096. 

Henry I., 

1100-1135. 



mandy to his eldest son, Robert. In 1095 
(eight years after his death) commenced 
those extraordinary wars carried on by the 
chivalry of Europe against the Saracens in 
the East. Robert, in order to raise money 
to join the first crusade, mortgaged Nor- 
mandy to his brother, and an absorption of 
Western France had begun, which, by means 
of conquest by arms and the more peaceful 
conquest by marriage, would in fifty years 
extend English dominion from the Scottish 
border to the Pyrenees. 

William's son Henry (I.), who succeeded 
his older brother, William Rufus, inherited 
enough of his father's administrative genius 
to complete the details of government which 
he had outlined. He organized the begin- 
ning of a judicial system, creating out of his 
secretaries and Royal Ministers a Supreme 
Court, whose head bore the title of Chancel- 
lor. He created also another tribunal, which 
represented the body of royal vassals who 
had all hitherto been summoned together 
three times a year. This "King's Court," 
as it was called, considered everything re- 
lating to the revenues of the state. Its 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 43 

meetings were about a table with a top like 
a chessboard, which led to calling the mem- 
bers who sat, "Barons of the Exchequer." 
He also wisely created a class of lesser 
nobles, upon whom the old barons looked 
down with scorn, but who served as a coun- 
terbalancing force against the arrogance of 
an old nobility, and bridged the distance 
between them and the people. 

So, while the thirty-five years of Henry's 
reign advanced and developed the purposes 
of his father, his marriage with a Saxon 
Princess did much to efface the memory of 
foreign conquest, in restoring the old Saxon 
blood to the royal line. But the young 
Prince who embodied this hope, went down 
with 140 young nobles in the "White Ship," 
while returning from Normandy. It is said 
that his father never smiled again, and. 
upon his death, his nephew Stephen was 
king during twenty unfruitful years. 

But the succession returned through Ma- 
tilda, daughter of Henry I. and the Saxon 
princess. She married Geoffrey, Count of 
Anjou. This Geoffrey, called "the hand- 
some," always wore in his helmet a sprig of 



44 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



Henry II., 

1154-1189. 

House of 

Plantagenet, 

1154-1399. 

Thomas a. 

Beckefs 

Deatli 1170. 



the broom-plant of Anjou {Planta genista), 
hence their son, Henry II. of England, was 
known as Henry Plante-a-genet. 

This first Plantagenet was a strong, coarse- 
fibred man; a practical reformer, without 
sentiment, but really having good govern- 
ment profoundly at heart. 

He took the reins into his great, rough 
hands with a determination first of all to 
curb the growing power of the clergy, by 
bringing it under the jurisdiction of the 
civil courts. To this end he created his 
friend and chancellor, Thomas a Becket, a 
primate of the Church to aid the accomplish- 
ment of his purpose. But from the moment 
Becket became Archbishop of Canterbury, he 
was transformed into the defender of the 
organization he was intended to subdue. 
Henry was furious when he found himself 
resisted and confronted by the very man he 
had created as an instrument of his will. 
These were years of conflict. At last, in a 
moment of exasperation, the king exclaimed, 
"Is there none brave enough to rid me of 
this low-born priest!" This was construed 
into a command. Four knights sped swiftly 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 45 

to Canterbury Cathedral, and murdered the 
Archbishop at the altar. Henry was stricken 
with remorse, and caused himself to be beaten 
with rods like the vilest criminal, kneeling 
upon the spot stained with the blood of his 
friend. It was a brutal murder, which caused 
a thrill of horror throughout Christendom. 
Becket was canonized; miracles were per- 
formed at his tomb, and for hundreds of 
years a stream of bruised humanity flowed 
into Canterbury, seeking surcease of sorrow, 
and cure for sickness and disease, by contact 
with the bones of the murdered saint. 

But Henry had accomplished his end. 
The clergy was under the jurisdiction of 
the King's Court during his reign. He also 
continued the judicial reorganization com- 
menced by Henry I. He divided the king- 
dom into judicial districts. This completely 
effaced the legal jurisdiction of the nobles. 
The Circuits thus defined correspond roughly 
with those existing to-day; and from the 
Court of Appeals, which was also his crea- 
tion, came into existence tribunal after tri- 
bunal in the future, including the "Star 
Chamber" and "Privy Council." 



46 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

But of all the blows aimed at the barons 
none told more effectually than the restora- 
tion of a national militia, which freed the 
crown from dependence upon feudal retain- 
ers for military service. 

In a fierce quarrel between two Irish chief- 
tains, Henry was called upon to interfere; 
and when the quarrel was adjusted, Ireland 
found herself annexed to the English crown, 
and ruled by a viceroy appointed by the 
king. The drama of the Saxons defending 
the Britons from the Picts and Scots, was 
repeated. 

This first Plantagenet, with fiery face, 
bull-neck, bowed legs, keen, rough, obsti- 
nate, passionate, left England greater and 
freer, and yet with more of a personal des- 
potism than he had found her. The trouble 
with such triumphs is that they presuppose 
the wisdom and goodness of succeeding 
tyrants. 

Henry's heart broke when he learned that 
his favorite son, John, was conspiring against 
him. He turned his face to the wall and 
died (1189), the practical hard-headed old 
king leaving his throne to a romantic 



1189-1199. 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 47 

dreamer, who could not even speak the lan- 
guage of his country. 

Eichard (Cceur de Lion) was a hero of ro- Richard i., 
mance, but not of history. The practical 
concerns of his kingdom had no charm for 
him. His eye was fixed upon Jerusalem, 
not England, and he spent almost the entire 
ten years of his reign in the Holy Land. 

The Crusades, had fired the old spirit of 
Norse adventure left by the Danes, and 
England shared the general madness of the 
time. As a result for the treasure spent 
and blood spilled in Palestine, she received 
a few architectural devices and the science of 
Heraldry. But to Europe, the benefits were 
incalculable. The barons were impover- 
ished, their great estates mortgaged to thrifty 
burghers, who extorted from their poverty 
charters of freedom, which unlocked the 
fetters and broke the spell of the dark ages. 

Richard the Lion-Hearted died as he had 
lived, not as a king, but as a romantic ad- 
venturer. He was shot by an arrow while 
trying to secure fabulous hidden treasure in 
France, with which to continue his wars in 
Palestine. 



Prince 

Arthur's 
Murder, 1203. 



48 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

John, His brother John, in 1199, ascended the 

1199-1216. ., TT . , , 

throne. His name has come down as a 
type of baseness, cruelty, and treachery. 
His brother Geoffrey had married Constance 
of Brittany, and their son Arthur, named 
after the Keltic hero, had been urged as a 
rival claimant for the English throne. 
Shakespeare has not exaggerated the cruel 
fate of this boy, whose monstrous uncle 
really purposed having his eyes burnt out, 
being sure that if he were blind he would 
no longer be eligible for king. But death 
is surer even than blindness, and Hubert, his 
merciful protector from one fate, was power- 
less to avert the other. Some one was found 
with "heart as hard as hammered iron," 
who put an end to the young life (1203) 
at the Castle of Eouen. 

But the King of England, was vassal to the 
King of France, and Philip summoned John 
to account to him for this deed. When 
John refused to appear, the French provinces 
were torn from him. In 1204 he saw an Em- 
pire stretching from the English Channel to 
the Pyrenees vanish from his grasp, and was 
at one blow reduced to the realm of England. 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 49 

When we see on the map, England as she 
was in that day, sprawling in unwieldy 
fashion over the western half of France, we 
realize how much stronger she has been on 
"that snug little island, that right little, 
tight little island," and we can see that 
John's wickedness helped her to be invin- 
cible. 

The destinies of England in fact rested 
with her worst king. His tyranny, brutal- 
ity, and disregard of his subjects' rights, in- 
duced a crisis which laid the corner-stone of 
England's future, and buttressed her liber- 
ties for all time. 

At a similar crisis in France, two centu- 
ries later, the king (Charles VII.) made com- 
mon cause with the people against the barons 
or dukes. In England, in the 13th Century, 
the barons and people were drawn together 
against the King. ' They framed a Charter, Magna cnarta, 
its provisions securing protection and justice 1215, 
to every freeman in England. On Easter 
Day, 1215, the barons, attended by two 
thousand armed knights, met the King near 
Oxford, and demanded his signature to the 
paper. John was awed, and asked them to 



50 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

name a day and place. " Let the day be the 
15th of June, and the place Runny mede," 
was the reply. 

A brown, shrivelled piece of parchment in 
the British Museum to-day, attests to the 
keeping of this appointment. That old Oak 
at Runnymede, under whose spreading 
branches the name of John was affixed to 
the Magna Charta, was for centuries held 
the most sacred spot in England. 

It is an impressive picture we get of 
John, "the Lord's Anointed," when this 
scene was over, in a burst of rage rolling on 
the floor, biting straw, and gnawing a stick ! 
"They have placed twenty-five kings over 
me," he shouted in a fury; meaning the 
twenty-five barons who were entrusted with 
the duty of seeing that the provisions of the 
Charter were fulfilled. 

Whether his death, one year later (1216), 
was the result of vexation of spirit or surfeit 
of peaches and cider, or poison, history does 
not positively say. But England shed no 
tears for the King to whom she owes her 
liberties in the Magna Charta. 



CHAPTER IV. 

For the succeeding 56 years John's son, Henry ill, 

1216-1273 

Henry III., was King of England. While 
this vain, irresolute, ostentatious king was 
extorting money for his ambitious designs 
and extravagant pleasures, and struggling 
to get back the pledges given in the Great 
Charter, new and higher forces, to which 
he gave no heed, were at work in his 
kingdom. 

Paris at this time was the centre of a 
great intellectual revival, brought about by 
the Crusades. We have seen that through 
the despised Jew, at the time of the Con- 
quest, a higher civilization was brought into 
England. Along with his hoarded gold 
came knowledge and culture, which he had 
obtained from the Saracen. Now, these 
germs had been revived by direct contact 
with the sources of ancient knowledge in 



Oxford in the 
Thirteenth 



52 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the East during the Crusades ; and while the 
long mental torpor of Europe was rolling 
away like mist before the rising sun, Eng- 
land felt the warmth of the same quicken- 
ing rays, and Oxford took on a new life. 

It was not the stately Oxford of to-day, 
century. but a rabble of roystering, revelling youths, 
English, Welsh, and Scotch, who fiercely 
fought out their fathers' feuds. 

They were a turbulent mob, who gave ad- 
vance opinion, as it were, upon every eccle- 
siastical or political measure, by fighting it 
out on the streets of their town, so that an 
outbreak at Oxford became a sort of prelude 
to every great political movement. 

Impossible as it seems, intellectual life 
grew and expanded in this tumultuous at- 
mosphere; and while the democratic spirit 
of the University threatened the king, its 
spirit of free intellectual inquiry shook the 
Church. 

The revival of classical learning, bring- 
ing streams of thought from old Greek and 
Latin fountains, caused a sudden expansion. 
It was like the discovery of an unsuspected 
and greater world, with a body of new truth, 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 53 

which threw the old into contemptuous dis- 
use. A spirit of doubt, scepticism, and de- 
nial, was engendered. They comprehended 
now why Abelard had claimed the "su- 
premacy of reason over faith," and why 
Italian poets smiled at dreams of " immor- 
tality." Then, too, the new culture com- 
pelled respect for infidel and for Jew. Was 
it not from their impious hands, that this 
new knowledge of the physical universe had 
been received? 

Roger Bacon drank deeply from these R °s er Bacon 

. writes 

fountains, new and old, and struggled like 'opusMajus." 
a giant to illumine the darkness of his time, 
by systematizing all existing knowledge. 
His "Opus Majus" was intended to bring 
these riches to the unlearned. But he died 
uncomprehended, and it was reserved for 
later ages to give recognition to his stupen- 
dous work, wrought in the twilight out of 
dimly comprehended truth. 

Pursued by the dream of recovering the 
French Empire, lost by his father, and of re- 
tracting the promises given in the Charter, 
Henry III. spent his entire reign in conflict 
with the barons and the people, who were 



54 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



Beginnings of 
House of 
Commons, 

1265. 

First true 

Parliament, 

1295. 

Edward I., 

1272-1307. 



closely drawn together by the common dan- 
ger and rallied to the defence of their liberties 
under the leadership of Simon de Montfort. 

It was at the town of Oxford that the 
great council of barons and bishops held its 
meetings. This council, which had long 
been called "Parliament" (from parler), in 
the year 1265 became for the first time a 
representative body, when Simon cle Mont- 
fort summoned not alone the lords and 
bishops — but two citizens from every city, 
and two burghers from every borough. A 
Rubicon was passed when the merchant, and 
the shopkeeper, sat for the first time with 
the noble and the bishops in the great 
council. It was thirty years before the 
change was fully effected, it being in the 
year 1295 (just 600 years ago now) that the 
first true Parliament met. But the "House 
of Lords" and the germ of the "House of 
Commons," existed in this assembly at Ox- 
ford in 1265, and a government "of the 
people, for the people, by the people," had 
commenced. 

Edward I., the son and successor of 
Henry III., not only graciously confirmed 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



55 



the Great Charter, but added to its privi- 
leges. His expulsion of the Jews, is the one 
dark blot on his reign. 

He conquered North Wales, the strong- 
hold where those Keltic Britons, the Welsh, 
had always maintained a separate exist- 
ence ; and as a recompense for their wounded 
feelings bestowed upon the heir to the 
throne, the title "Prince of Wales.'''' 

Westminster Abbey was completed at 
this time and began to be the resting-place 
for England's illustrious dead. The inven- 
tion of gunpowder, which was to make iron- 
clad knights a romantic tradition, also be- 
longs to this period, which saw too, the con- 
quest of Scotland; and the magic stone sup- 
posed to have been Jacob's pillow at Bethel, 
and which was the Scottish talisman, was 
carried to Westminster Abbey and built 
into a coronation -chair, which has been used 
at the crowning of every English sovereign 
since that time. 

Scottish liberties were not so sacrificed by 
this conquest as had been the Irish. The 
Scots would not be slaves, nor would they 
stay conquered without many a struggle. 



North Wales 
Conquered, 

1213. 

Conquest of 

Scotland, 

1296. 



Edward III. 
1327-1377. 



56 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Robert Bruce. Robert Bruce led a great rebellion, which 

Bannockburn, , .. -. . . . . , . . _, 

13 i4. extended into the succeeding reign, and 
Edward ii., Bruce's name was covered with glory by his 
1307-1327. great victory at Bannockburn (1314). 

We need not linger over the twenty years 
during which Edward II., by his private in- 
famies, so exasperated his wife and son that 
they brought about his deposition, which 
was followed soon after by his murder ; and 
then by a disgraceful regency, during which 
the Queen's favorite, Mortimer, was virtu- 
ally king. But King Edward III. com- 
menced to rule with a strong hand. As 
soon as he was eighteen years old he sum- 
moned the Parliament. Mortimer was 
hanged at Tyburn, and his queen -mother 
was immured for life. 

We have turned our backs upon Old Eng- 
land. The England of a representative 
Parliament and a House of Commons, of 
ideals derived from a wider knowledge, the 
England of a Westminster Abbey, and gun- 
powder, and cloth -weaving, is the England 
we all know to-day. Vicious kings and 
greed of territory, and lust of power, will 
keep the road from being a smooth one, 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 57 

but it leads direct to the England of Vic- 
toria; and 1S95 was roughly outlined in 
1327, when Edward III. grasped the helm 
with the decision of a master. 

After completing the subjection of Scot- 
land he invaded France, — the pretext of 
resisting her designs upon the Netherlands, 
being merely a cover for his own thirst for 
territory and conquest. The victory over 
the French at Crecy, 1346, (and later of Poi- Battle of crecy, 
tiers,) covered the warlike king and his son, 
Edward the "Black Prince," with imperish- 
able renown. Small cannon were first used 
at that battle. The knights and the archers 
laughed at the little toy, but found it use- 
ful in frightening the enemies' horses. 

Edward III. covered England with a 
mantle of military glory, for which she had 
to pay dearly later. He elevated the king- 
ship to a more dazzling height, for which 
there have also been some expensive reckon- 
ings since. He introduced a new and higher 
dignity into nobility by the title of Duke, 
which he bestowed upon his sons ; the great 
landholders or barons, having until that time 
constituted a body in which all were peers. 



58 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

He has been the idol of heroic England. 
But he awoke the dream of French con- 
quest, and bequeathed to his successors a 
fatal war, which lasted for 100 years. 

The "Black Prince" died, and the "Black 
Death," a fearful pestilence, desolated a 
land already decimated by protracted wars. 
The valiant old King, after a life of brilliant 
triumphs, carried a sad and broken heart to 

R j^ 1 ^ 1 ' the grave, and Richard II., son of the heroic 

wat Tyler's Prince Ed ward, was king. 
Rebellion, 1381. This lagt of the pi antag enets had need of 

great strength and wisdom to cope with the 
forces stirring at that time in his kingdom, 
and was singularly deficient in both. The 
costly conquests of his grandfather, were a 
troublesome legacy to his feeble grandson. 
Enormous taxes unjustly levied to pay for 
past glories, do not improve the temper of a 
people. A shifting of the burden from one 
class to another arrayed all in antagonisms 
against each other, and finally, when the bur- 
den fell upon the lowest order, as it is apt 
to do, it rose in fierce rebellion under the 
leadership of Wat Tyler, a blacksmith (1381). 
Concessions were granted and quiet re- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 59 

stored, but the people had learned a new way 
of throwing off injustice. There began to 
be a new sentiment in the air. Men were 
asking why the few should dress in velvet 
and the many in rags. It was the first 
English revolt against the tyranny of wealth, 
when people were heard on the streets sing- 
ing the couplet — 

"When Adam delved and Eve span, 
Who was then the gentleman?" 

As in the times of the early Saxon kings, 
the cause breeding destruction was the wid- 
ening distance between the king and the 
people. In those earlier times the people 
unresistingly lapsed into decadence, but the 
Anglo-Saxon had learned much since then, 
and it was not so safe to degrade him and 
trample on his rights. 

Then, too, John Wickliffe had been telling John wickiiffe, 
some very plain truths to the people about 
the Church of Rome, and there was develop- 
ing a sentiment which made Pope and Clergy 
tremble. There was a spirit of inquiry, 
having its centre at Oxford, looking into 
the title-deeds of the great ecclesiastical 



60 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

despotism. Wickliffe heretically claimed 
that the Bible was the one ground of faith, 
and he added to his heresy by translating 
that Book into simple Saxon English, that 
men might learn for themselves what was 
Christ's message to man. 

Luther's protest in the 16th Century was 
but the echo of Wickliffe's in the 14th, — 
against the tyranny of a Church from which 
all spiritual life had departed, and which in 
its decay tightened its grasp upon the very 
things which its founder put "behind Him" 
in the temptation on the mountain, and 
aimed at becoming a temporal despotism. 

Closely intermingled with these struggles 
was going on another, unobserved at the 
time. Three languages held sway in Eng- 
land — Latin in the Church, French in polite 
society, and English among the people. 
Chaucer's genius selected the language of 
the people for its expression, as also of course, 
did Wickliffe in his translation of the Bible. 
French and Latin were dethroned, and the 
"King's English" became the language of 
the literature and speech of the English 
nation. 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



61 



He would have been a wise and great 
King who could have comprehended and 
controlled all the various forces at work at 
this time. Eichard II. was neither. This 
seething, tumbling mass of popular discon- 
tents was besides only the groundwork for 
the personal strifes and ambitions which 
raged about the throne. The wretched King, 
embroiled with every class and every party, 
was pronounced by Parliament unfit to 
reign, the same body which deposed him, 
giving the crown to his cousin Henry of 
Lancaster (1399), and the reign of the Plan- 
tagenets was ended. 



1399, 

Deposition of 

Richard II. 

House of 

Plantagenet 

ends 1399. 



CHAPTER V. 

House of The new king did not inherit the throne ; 

1309-1461. he was elected to it. He was an arbitrary 
^JJjrJjJ" creation of Parliament. The Duke of Lan- 
caster, Henry's father (John of Gaunt), was 
only a younger son of Edward III. Accord- 
ing to the strict rules of hereditary succes- 
sion, there were two others with claims su- 
perior to Henry's. Richard Duke of York, 
his cousin, claimed a double descent from 
the Duke Clarence and also from the Duke 
of York, both sons of Edward III. 

This led later to the dreariest chapter in 
English history, "the Wars of the Roses." 

It is an indication of the enormous in- 
crease in the strength of Parliament, that 
such an exercise of power, the creating of 
a king, was possible. Haughty, arrogant 
kings bowed submissively to its will. 
Henry could not make laws nor impose 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 63 

taxes without first summoning Parliament 
and obtaining his subjects' consent. But cor- 
rupting influences were at work which were 
destined to cheat England out of her liber- 
ties for many a year. 

The impoverishment of the country to pay 
for war and royal extravagances, had awak- 
ened a troublesome spirit in the House of 
Commons. Cruelty to heretics also, and op- 
pressive enactments were fought and de- 
feated in this body. The King, clergy, and 
nobles, were drawing closer together and 
farther away from the people, and were 
devising ways of stifling their will. 

If the King might not resist the will of 
Parliament, he could fill it with men who 
would not resist his; so, by a system of 
bribery and force in the boroughs, the 
House of Commons had injected into it 
enough of the right sort to carry obnoxious 
measures. This was only one of the ways 
in which the dearly bought liberties were 
being defeated. 

Henry IV., the first Lancastrian king, 
lighted the fires of persecution in England. 
The infamous "Statute of Heresy" was 



64 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

passed 1401. Its first victim was a priest 
who was thrown to the flames for denying 
the doctrine of transubstantiation. 

Wickliffe had left to the people not a party, 
but a sentiment. The "Lollards," as they 
were called, were not an organization, but 
rather a pervading atmosphere of revolt, 
which naturally combined with the social 
discontent of the time, and there came to be 
more of hate than love in the movement, 
which was at its foundation a revolt against 
inequality of condition. As in all such move- 
ments, much that was vicious and unwise 
in time mingled with it, tending to give 
some excuse for its repression. The dis- 
carding of an old faith, unless at once re- 
placed by a new one, is a time fraught with 
many dangers to Society and State. 

Such were some of the forces at work for 

fourteen brief years while Henry IV. wore 

the coveted crown, and while bis son, the 

roystering "Prince Hal," in the new charac- 

Henry v., ter of King (Henry V.) lived out his brief 

1413-1422. . « i ' j . 

nine years of glory and conquest. 

France, with an insane King, vicious 
Queen Regent, and torn by the dissensions 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



65 



of ambitious Dukes, had reached her hour 
of greatest weakness, when Henry V. swept 
down upon her with his archers, and broke 
her spirit by his splendid victory at Agin- 
court; then married her Princess Kath- 
arine, and was proclaimed Eegent of France. 
The rough wooing of his French bride, im- 
mortalized by Shakespeare, throws a gla- 
mour of romance over the time. 

But an all - subduing King cut short 
Henry's triumphs. He was stricken and 
died (1422), leaving an infant son nine 
months old, who bore the weight of the 
new title, "King of England and France," 
while Henry's brother, the Duke of Bed- 
ford, reigned as Regent. 

Then it was, that by a mysterious inspi- 
ration, Joan of Arc, a child and a peasant, 
led the French army to the besieged City 
of Orleans, and the crucial battle was 
won. 

Charles VII. was King. The English 
were driven out of France, and the Hundred 
Years' War ended in defeat (1453). Eng- 
land had lost Aquitaine, which for two hun- 
dred years (since Henry II.) had been hers, 



Agincourt, 
1415. 



Joan of Arc. 
Battle of 
Orleans 

1439. 



66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and had not a foot of ground on Norman 
soil. 

The long shadow cast by Edward III. 
upon England was deepening. A ruinous 
war had drained her resources and arrested 
her liberties ; and now the odium of defeat 
made the burdens it imposed intolerable. 
The temper of every class was strained to 
the danger point. The wretched govern- 
ment was held responsible, followed, as 
usual, by impeachments, murders, and im- 
potent outbursts of fury. 

While, owing to social processes long at 
work, feudalism was in fact a ruin, a mere 
empty shell, it still seemed powerful as ever; 
just as an oak, long after its roots are dead, 
will still carry aloft a waving mass of green 
leafage. The great Earl of Warwick when 
he went to Parliament was still followed 
by 600 liveried retainers. But when Jack 
Cade led 20,000 men in rebellion at the close 
of the French war, they were not the serfs 
and villeinage of other times, but farmers 
and laborers, who, when they demanded a 
more economical expenditure of royal rev- 
enue, freedom at elections, and the removal 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 67 

of restrictions on their dress and living, 
knew their rights, and were not going to 
give them up without a struggle. 

But the madness of personal ambition was 
going to work deeper ruin and more com- 
plete wreck of England's fortunes. We 
have seen that by the interposition of Par- 
liament, the House of Lancaster had been 
placed on the throne contrary to the tradi- 
tion which gave the succession to the oldest 
branch, which Richard, the Duke of York, 
claimed to represent ; his claim strengthened 
by a double descent from Edward III. 
through his two sons, Lionel and Edward. 

For twenty-one years, (1450-1471) these 
descendants of Edward III. were engaged 
in the most savage war, for purely selfish 
and personal ends, with not one noble or 
chivalric element to redeem the disgraceful 
exhibition of human nature at its worst. 
Murders, executions, treacheries, adorn a 
network of intrigue and villany, which was 
enough to have made the " White" and the 
" Red Rose" forever hateful to English eyes. 

The great Earl of Warwick led the White 
Rose of York to victory, sending the Lan- 



68 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

castrian King to the tower, his wife and 
child fugitives from the Kingdom, and pro- 
claimed Edward, (son of Eichard Duke of 
York, the original claimant, who had been 
slain in the conflict), King of England. 

Then, with an unscrupulousness worthy 
of the time and the cause, Warwick opened 
communication with the fugitive Queen, of- 
fering her his services, betrothed his daugh- 
ter to the young Edward, Prince of Wales, 
took up the red Lancastrian rose from the 
dust of defeat, — brought the captive he had 
sent to the tower back to his throne — only 
to see him once more dragged down again 
by the Yorkists — and for the last time re- 
turned to captivity ; leaving his wife a pris- 
oner and his young son dead at Tewksbury, 
stabbed by Yorkist lords. Henry VI. died 
Hemyvi iu the Tower, " mysteriously, " as did all the 
House of York, deposed and imprisoned Kings; Warwick 
was slain in battle, and with Edward IV. 
the reign of the House of York commenced. 

Such in brief is the story of the " Wars 
of the Roses'' and of the Earl of Warwick, 
the "King Maker." 

At the close of the Wars of the Eoses, 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 69 

feudalism was a ruin. The oak with its Edward iv„ 

dead roots had been prostrated by the 14 ' 11483 - 

storm. The imposing system had wrought 

its own destruction. Eighty Princes of the 

blood royal had perished, and more than half 

of the Nobility had died on the field or the 

scaffold, or were fugitives in foreign lands. 

The great Duke of Exeter, brother-in-law 

to a King, was seen barefoot begging bread 

from door to door. 

By the confiscation of one-fifth of the 
landed estate of the Kingdom, vast wealth 
poured into the King's treasury. He had 
no need now to summon Parliament to vote 
him supplies. The clergy, rendered feeble 
and lifeless from decline in spiritual enthu- 
siasm, and by its blind hostility to the intel- 
lectual movement of the time, crept closer 
to the throne, while Parliament, with its 
partially disfranchised House of Commons, 
was so rarely summoned that it almost 
ceased to exist. In the midst of the general 
wreck, the Kingship towered in solitary 
greatness. 

Edward IV. was absolute sovereign. He 
had no one to fear, unless it was his in- 



70 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

triguing brother Richard, Duke of Glouces- 
ter, who, during the twenty-three years of 
Edward's reign, was undoubtedly carefully 
planning the bloodstained steps by which 
he himself should reach the throne. 

Acute in intelligence, distorted in form 
and in character, this Kichard was a mon- 
ster of iniquity. The hapless boy left heir 
to the throne upon the death of Edward 
IV., his father, was placed under the guar- 
dianship of his misshapen uncle, who until 
the majority of the young King, Edward 
V. , was to reign under the title of Protec- 
tor. 

How this " Protector" protected his neph- 
Princes in the ews all know. The two boys (Edward V. 
and Richard, Duke of York) were carried to 
the Tower. The world has been reluctant to 
believe that they were really smothered, as 
has been said; but the finding, nearly two 
hundred years later, of the skeletons of two 
children which had been buried or concealed 
at the foot of the stairs leading to their 
place of confinement, seems to confirm it 
beyond a doubt. 

Retribution came swiftly. Two years 



Richard in., 

1483-1485. 
Death of the 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



71 



later Richard fell at the battle of Bosworth 
Field, and the crown won by numberless 
crimes, rolled under a hawthorn bush. It 
was picked up and placed upon a worthier 
head. 

Henry Tudor, an offshoot of the House of 
Lancaster, was proclaimed King Henry VII. , 
and his marriage with Princess Elizabeth of 
York (sister of the princes murdered in the 
Tower) forever blended the White and the 
Red Rose in peaceful union. 

During all this time, while Kings came 
and Kings went, the people viewed these 
changes from afar. But if they had no 
longer any share in the government, a great 
expansion was going on in their inner life. 
Caxton had set up his printing press, and 
the " art preservative of all arts," was bring- 
ing streams of new knowledge into thou- 
sands of homes. Copernicus had discovered 
a new Heaven, and Columbus a new Earth. 
The sun no longer circled around the Earth, 
nor was the Earth a flat plain. There was 
a revival of classic learning at Oxford, and 
Erasmus, the great preacher, was founding 
schools and preparing the minds of the peo- 



Bosworth 

Field. 

House of 

Tudor, 

1485-1603. 

Henry VII., 

1485-1509. 



Printing 

Introduced 

into England. 



72 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

pie for the impending change, which was 
soon to be wrought by that Monk in Ger- 
many, whose soul was at this time begin- 
ning to be stirred to its mighty effort at 
reform. 



CHAPTER VI. 
When in the year 1509 a handsome youth Hem 7 vm - 

1509-1547 

of eighteen came to the throne, the hopes 
of England ran high. His intelligence, his 
frank, genial manners, his sympathy with 
the "new learning," won all classes. Eras- 
mus in his hopes of purifying the Church, 
and Sir Thomas More in his "Utopian" 
dreams for politics and society, felt that a 
friend had come to the throne in the young 
Henry VIII. 

Spain had become great through a union 
of the rival Kingdoms Castile and Aragon ; 
so a marriage with the Princess Katharine, 
daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, had 
been arranged for the young Prince Henry, 
who had quietly accepted for his Queen his 
brother's widow, six years his senior. 

France under Francis I. had risen into a 
state no less imposing than Spain, and 



74 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Henry began to be stirred with an ambition 
to take part in the drama of events going on 
upon the greater stage, across the Channel. 
The old dream of French conquest returned. 
Francis I. and Charles V. of Germany had 
commenced their struggle for supremacy in 
Europe. Henry's ambition was fostered by 
their vying with each other to secure his 
friendship. He was soon launched in a 
deep game of diplomacy, in which three in- 
triguing Sovereigns were striving each to 
outwit the others. 

What Henry lacked in experience and 
craft was supplied by his Chancellor Wol- 
sey, whose private and personal ambition 
to reach the Papal Chair was dexterously 
mingled with the royal game. The game 
was dazzling and absorbing, but it was 
unexpectedly interrupted; and the golden 
dreams of Erasmus and More, of a slow and 
orderly development in England through an 
expanding intelligence, were rudely shaken. 

Martin Luther audaciously nailed on the 
door of the Church at Wittenberg a protest 
against the selling of papal indulgences, and 
the pent-up hopes, griefs and despair of 



Reformation, 
1517, 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 75 

centuries burst into a storm which shook 
Europe to its centre. 

Since England had joined in the great 
game of European politics, she had ad- 
vanced from being a third-rate power to the 
front rank among nations ; so it was with 
great satisfaction that Catholic Europe 
heard Henry VIII. denounce the new Refor- 
mation, which had swiftly assumed alarm- Marriage with 

Anne Boleyn, 

ing proportions. isas. 

But a woman's eyes were to change all 
this. As Henry looked into the fair face of 
Anne Boleyn, his conscience began to be 
stirred over his marriage with his brother's 
widow, Katharine. He confided his scruples 
to Wolsey, who promised to use his efforts 
with the Pope to secure a divorce from 
Katharine. But this lady was aunt to 
Charles V., the great Champion of the 
Church in its fight with Protestantism. It 
would never do to alienate him. So the 
divorce was refused. 

Henry VIII. was not as flexible and ami- 
able now as the youth of eighteen had 
been. He defied the Pope, married Anne 
(1533), and sent his Minister into disgrace 



76 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

for not serving him more effectually. 
"There was the weight which pulled me 
down," said Wolsey of Anne, and death 
from a broken heart mercifully saved the 
old man from the scaffold he would cer- 
tainly have reached. 

The legion of demons which had been 
slumbering in the King were awakened. 
He would break no law, but he would bend 
the law to his will. He commanded a 
trembling Parliament to pass an act sus- 
taining his marriage with Anne. Another 
permitting him to name his successor, and 
then another — making him supreme head of 
„ His the Church in Enqland. The Pope was for- 

Supremacy. ... 

Henry a ever dethroned in his Kingdom, and Prot- 
Protestant. es f; an tism had achieved a bloodstained 
victory. 

Henry alone could judge what was ortho- 
doxy and what heresy ; but to disagree with 
him, was death. Traitor and heretic went 
to the scaffold in the same hurdle; the Cath- 
olic who denied the King's supremacy rid- 
ing side by side with the Protestant who 
denied transubstantiation. The Protestant- 
ism of this great convert was political, not 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 77 

religious; he despised the doctrines of Lu- 

theranism, and it was dangerous to believe 

too much and equally dangerous to believe 

too little. Heads dropped like leaves in the 

forest, and in three years the Queen who 

had overturned England and almost Europe, AnD p e ati eyn 

was herself carried to the scaffold (1536). 1536. 

It was in truth a " Eeign of Terror" by an 
absolutism standing upon the ruin of every 
rival. The power of the Barons had gone ; 
the Clergy were panic-stricken, and Parlia- 
ment was a servant, which arose and bowed 
humbly to his vacant throne at mention of 
his name! A member for whom he had 
sent knelt trembling one day before him. 
"Get my bill passed to-morrow, my little 
man," said the King, "or to-morrow, this 
head of yours will be off." The next day 
the bill passed, and millions of Church 
property was confiscated, to be thrown away 
in gambling, or to enrich the adherents of 
the King. 

Thomas Cromwell, who had succeeded to 
Wolsey's vacant place, was his efficient in- 
strument. This student of Machiavelli's 
"Prince," without passion or hate, pity or 



78 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

regret, marked men for destruction, as a 
woodman does tall trees, the highest and 
proudest names in the Kingdom being set 
down in his little notebook under the head 
of either "Heresy" or "Treason." Sir 
Thomas More, one of the wisest and best 
of men, would not say he thought the mar- 
riage with Katharine had been unlawful, 
and paid his head as the price of his fearless 
honesty. 

Jane Seymour, whom Henry married the 
day after Anne Boleyn's execution, died 
within a year at the birth of a son (Edward 
VI.). In 1540 Cromwell arranged another 
union with the plainest woman in Europe, 
Anne of Cleves ; which proved so distasteful 
to Henry that he speedily divorced her, and 
in resentment at Cromwell's having en- 
trapped him, by a flattering portrait drawn 
by Holbein, the Minister came under his 
displeasure, which at that time meant 
death. He was beheaded in 1540, and in 
that same year occurred the King's marriage 
Katharine with Katharine Howard, who one year later 
Howard's me {. fae same fate as Anne Boleyn. 

Death. J 

i54i. Katharine Parr, the sixth and last wife, 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



79 



and an ardent Protestant and reformer, also 
narrowly escaped, and would undoubtedly 
at last have gone to the block. But Henry, 
who at fifty-six was infirm and wrecked in 
health, died in the year 1547, the signing of 
death-warrants being his occupation to the 
very end. 

Whatever his motive, Henry VIII. had in 
making her Protestant, placed England 
firmly in the line of the world's highest 
progress ; and strange to say, that Kingdom 
is most indebted to two of her worst 
Kings. 

The crown passed to the son of Jane Sey- 
mour, Edward VI., a feeble boy of ten. In 
view of the doubtful validity of his father's 
divorce, and the consequent doubt cast upon 
the legitimacy of Edward's two sisters, Mary 
and Elizabeth, the young king was per- 
suaded to name his cousin Lady Jane Grey 
as his heir and successor. This gentle girl 
of seventeen, sensitive and thoughtful, a 
devout reformer, who read Greek and He- 
brew and wrote Latin poetry, is a pathetic 
figure in history, where we see her, the un- 
willing wearer of a crown for ten days, and 



Death of 

Henry VIII., 

1547. 



Edward VI., 

1547-1552. 

Lady Jane 

Grey's Death, 

1553. 



80 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

then with her young husband hurried to that 
fatal Tower, and to death. Upon the death of 
Edward this unhappy child was proclaimed 
Queen of England. But the change in the 
succession produced an unexpected uprising, 
in which even Protestants joined. Lady 
Jane Grey was hurried to the block, and the 
1553-1558. Catholic Mary to the throne. Henry's di- 
vorce was declared void, and his first mar- 
riage valid. Elizabeth was thus set aside by 
Act of Parliament ; and as she waited in the 
Tower, while her remorseless sister vainly 
sought for proofs of her complicity with the 
recent rebellion, she was seemingly nearer to 
a scaffold than to a throne. 

When we remember that there coursed in 
the veins of Mary Tudor the blood of cruel 
Spanish kings, mingled with that of Henry 
VIII., can we wonder that she was cruel and 
remorseless? Her marriage with Philip II. 
of Spain quickly overthrew the work of her 
father. Unlike Henry VIII., Mary was im- 
pelled by deep convictions ; and like her 
grandmother, Isabella I. of Spain, she perse- 
cuted to save from what she believed was 
death eternal ; and her cruelty, although 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 81 

unfcempered by one humane impulse, was 
still prompted by a sincere fanaticism, with 
which was mingled an intense desire to 
please the Catholic Philip. But Philip re- 
mained obdurately in Spain ; and while she 
was lighting up all England with a blaze 
of martyrs, Calais, — over which the English 
standard planted by Edward III. had waved 
for more than 200 years, — Calais, the last ' a i558. 
English possession in France, was lost. 
Amid these crushing disappointments, pub- 
lic and personal, Mary died (1558), after a 
reign of only five years. 

Elizabeth with her legitimacy questioned 
was still under the shadow of the scaffold 
upon which her mother had perished. There 
is reason to believe that Philip II. turned the 
delicately balanced scale. It better suited 
him to have Elizabeth occupy the throne of 
England, than that Mary Stuart, the next 
nearest heir, should do so. Mary had mar- 
ried the Dauphin of France ; and France 
was Philip's enemy and rival. Better far 
that England should become Protestant, than 
that France should hold the balance of 
power in Europe ! 



CHAPTER VII. 

Elizabeth, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII. and 
Anne Boleyn, a disgraced and decapitated 
Queen, wore the crown of England. If hered- 
ity had been as much talked of then as now, 
England might have feared the child of a 
faithless wife, and a remorseless, bloodthirsty 
King. But while Mary, daughter of Kath- 
arine, the most pious and best of mothers, 
had left only a great blood-spot upon the 
page of History, Elizabeth's reign was to be 
the most wise, prosperous and great, the 
Kingdom had ever known. In her complex 
character there was the imperiousness, au- 
dacity and unscrupulousness of her father, 
the voluptuous pleasure-loving nature of 
her mother, and mingled with both, quali- 
ties which came from neither. She was a 
tyrant, held in check by a singular caution, 
with an instinctive perception of the pres- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 83 

ence of danger, to which her purposes always 
instantly bent. 

The authority vested in her was as abso- 
lute as her father's, but while her imperious 
temper sacrificed individuals without mercy, 
she ardently desired the welfare of her 
Kingdom, which she ruled with extraordi- 
nary moderation and a political sagacity 
almost without parallel, softening, but not 
abandoning, one of her father's usurpations. 

She was a Protestant without any enthu- 
siasm for the religion she intended to restore 
in England, and prayed to the Virgin in her 
own private Chapel, while she was undoing 
the work of her Catholic sister Mary. The 
obsequious apologies to the Pope were with- 
drawn, but the Eeformation she was going 
to espouse, was not the fiery one being fought 
for in Germany and France. It was mild, 
moderate, and like her father's, more polit- 
ical than religious. The point she made 
was that there must be religious uniformity, 
and conformity to the Established Church 
of England — with its new "Articles," which 
as she often said, "left opinion free." 

It was in fact a softened reproduction of 



84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

her terrible father's attitude. The Church, 
(called an "Episcopacy," on account of the 
jurisdiction of its Bishops,) was Protestant 
in doctrine, with gentle leaning toward 
Catholicism in externals, held still firmly by 
the "Act of Supremacy" in the controlling 
hand of the Sovereign. Above all else de- 
siring peace and prosperity for England, 
the keynote of Elizabeth's policy in Church 
and in State was conciliation and compro- 
mise. So the Church of England was to a 
great extent a compromise, retaining as 
much as the people would bear of external 
form and ritual, for the sake of reconciling 
Catholic England. 

The large element to whom this was of- 
fensive was reinforced by returning refu- 
gees who brought with them the stern doc- 
trines of Calvin ; and they finally separated 
themselves altogether from a Church in 
which so much of Papacy still lingered, to 
establish one upon simpler and purer foun- 
dation; hence they were called "Puritans," 
and " Nonconformists," and were persecuted 
for violation of the "Act of Supremacy." 

The masculine side of Elizabeth's charac- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 85 

ter was fully balanced by her feminine 
foibles. Her vanity was inordinate. Her 
love of adulation and passion for display, 
her caprice, duplicity, and her reckless love- 
affairs, form a strange background for the 
calm, determined, masterly statesmanship 
under which her Kingdom expanded. 

The subject of her marriage was a mo- 
mentous one. There were plenty of aspi- 
rants for the honor. Her brother-in-law 
Philip, since the abdication of Charles V., 
his father, was a mighty King, ruler over 
Spain and the Netherlands, and was at the 
head of Catholic Europe. He saw in this 
vain, silly young Queen of England an easy 
prey. By marrying her he could bring 
England back to the fold, as he had done 
with her sister Mary, and the Catholic cause 
would be invincible. 

Elizabeth was a coquette, without the 
personal charm supposed to belong to that 
dangerous part of humanity. She toyed 
with an offer of marriage as does a cat with 
a mouse. She had never intended to marry 
Philip, but she kept him waiting so long for 
her decision, and so exasperated him with 



86 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

her caprice, that he exclaimed at last, " That 
girl has ten thousand devils in her." He 
little thought, that beneath that surface of 
folly there was a nature hard as steel, and 
a calm, clear, cool intelligence, for which 
his own would be no match, and which 
would one day hold in check the diplomacy 
of the "Escurial" and outwit that of Eu- 
rope. She adored the culture brought by 
the "new learning;" delighted in the so- 
ciety of Sir Philip Sidney, who reflected all 
that was best in England of that day; 
talked of poetry with Spenser; discussed 
philosophy with Bruno; read Greek trage- 
dies and Latin orations in the original ; could 
converse in French and Italian, and was be- 
sides proficient in another language, — the 
language of the fishwife, — which she used 
with startling effect with her lords and 
ministers when her temper was aroused, 
and swore like a trooper if occasion re- 
quired. 

But whatever else she was doing she 
never ceased to study the new England she 
was ruling. She felt, though did not un- 
derstand, the expansion which was going 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 87 

on in the spirit of the people ; but instinc- 
tively realized the necessity for changes and 
modifications in her Government, when the 
temper of the nation seemed to require it. 

It was enormous common-sense and tact 
which converted Elizabeth into a liberal 
Sovereign. Her instincts were despotic. 
When she bowed instantly to the will of the 
Commons, almost apologizing for seeming 
to resist it, it was not because she sympa- 
thized with liberal sentiments, but because 
of her profound political instincts, which 
taught her the danger of alienating that 
class upon which the greatness of her King- 
dom rested. She realized the truth forgot- 
ten by some of her successors, that the Sov- 
ereign and the middle class must be friends. 
She might resist and insult her lords and 
ministers, send great Earls and favorites 
ruthlessly to the block, but no slightest 
cloud must come between her and her 
"dear Commons" and people. This it was 
which made Spenser's adulation in the 
"Faerie Queen" but an expression of the 
intense loyalty of her meanest subject. 

Perhaps it was because she remembered 



88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

that the whole fabric of the Church rested 
upon Parliamentary enactment, and that 
she herself was Queen of England by Par- 
liamentary sanction, that she viewed so 
complacently the growing power of that 
body in dealing more and more with mat- 
ters supposed to belong exclusively to the 
Crown, as for instance in the struggle 
made by the Commons to suppress monopo- 
lies in trade, granted by royal prerogative. 
At the first she angrily resisted the meas- 
ure. But finding the strength of the pop 
ular sentiment, she gracefully retreated, de- 
claring, with royal scorn for truth, that 
"she had not before known of the existence 
of such an evil." 

In fact, lying, in her independent code of 
morals, was a virtue, and one to which she 
owed some of her most brilliant triumphs 
in diplomacy. And when the bald, unmiti- 
gated lie was at last found out, she felt not 
the slightest shame, but only amusement at 
the simplicity of those who had believed she 
was speaking the truth. 

Her natural instincts, her thrift, and her 
love of peace inclined her to keep aloof 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 89 

from the struggle going on in Europe be- 
tween Protestants and Catholics. But while 
the news of St. Bartholomew's Eve seemed Massacre of st - 

Bartholo- 

to give her no thrill of horror, she still mews 1572. 
sent armies and money to aid the Hu- 
guenots in France, and to stem the perse- 
cutions of Philip in the Netherlands, and 
committed England fully to a cause for 
which she felt no enthusiasm. She encour- 
aged every branch of industry, commerce, 
trade, fostered everything which would lead 
to prosperity. Listened to Ealeigh's plans 
for colonization in America, permitting the 
New Colony to be called "Virginia" in her 
honor (the Virgin Queen). She chartered Eastindia 

v ° ' Company 

the "Merchant Company," intended to ab- chartered,i606. 
sorb the new trade with the Indies (1600), ^y^g^'ia! ° 
and which has expanded into a British 
Empire in India. 

But amid all this triumph, a sad and soli- 
tary woman sat on the throne of England. 
The only relation she had in the world was 
her cousin, Mary Stuart, who was plotting 
to undermine and supplant her. 

The question of Elizabeth's legitimacy was 
an ever recurring one, and afforded a rally- 



90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ing point for malcontents, who asserted that 
her mother's marriage with Henry VIII. 
was invalidated by the refusal of the Pope 
to sanction the divorce. Mary Stuart, who 
stood next to Elizabeth in the succession, 
formed a centre from which a network of 
intrigue and conspiracy was always menac- 
ing the Queen's peace, if not her life, and 
her crown. 

Scotland, since the extinction of the line 
of Bruce, had been ruled by the Stuart 
Kings. Torn by internal feuds between her 
clans, and by the incessant struggle against 
English encroachments, she had drawn into 
close friendship with France, which country 
used her for its own ends, in harassing 
England, so that the Scottish border was al- 
ways a point of danger in every quarrel be- 
tween French and English Kings. 

In 1502 Henry VIII. had bestowed the 
hand of his sister Margaret upon James IV. 
of Scotland, and it seemed as if a peaceful 
union was at last secured with his Northern 
neighbor. But in the war with France which 
soon followed, James, the Scottish King, 
turned to his old ally. He was killed at 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 91 

"Flodden Field," after suffering a crushing Fiodden Field, 

1513. 

defeat. His successor, James V., had mar- Birth of Mary 
ied Mary Guise. Her family was the head stuart > 154s - 
and front of the ultra Catholic party in 
France, and her counsels probably influ- 
enced James to a continual hostility to the 
Protestant Henry, even though he was his 
uncle. The death of James in consequence 
of his defeat at "Solway Moss" occurred im- 
mediately after the birth of his daughter, 
Mary Stuart (1542). 

This unhappy child at once became the 
centre of intriguing designs; Henry VIII. 
wishing to betroth the little Queen to his 
son, afterwards Edward VI., and thus for- 
ever unite the rival kingdoms. But the 
Guises made no compromises with Protes- 
tants ! Mary Guise, who was now Regent of 
the realm, had no desire for a closer union 
with Protestant England, and very much 
desired a nearer alliance with her own 
France. Mary Stuart was betrothed to the 
Dauphin, grandson of Francis I., and was sent 
to the French Court to be prepared by Cath- 
arine de' Medici (the Italian daughter-in-law 
of Francis I.) for her future exalted position. 



92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Mary stuart In 1561, Mary returned to England. Her 
^ngLnd. boy -husband had died after a reign of two 
years. She was nineteen years old, had 
wonderful beauty, rare intelligence, and 
power to charm like a siren. Her short 
life had been spent in the most corrupt and 
profligate of Courts, under the combined 
influence of Catharine de Medici, the worst 
woman in Europe, — and her two uncles of 
the House of Guise, who were little better. 
Political intrigues, plottings and crimes 
were in the very air she breathed from in- 
fancy. But she was an ardent and devout 
Catholic, and as such became the centre and 
the hope of what still remained of Catholic 
England. 

Elizabeth would have bartered half her 
possessions for the one possession of beauty. 
That she was jealous of her fascinating rival 
there is little doubt, but that she was exas- 
perated at her pretensions and at the au- 
dacious plottings against her life and throne 
is not strange. In fact we wonder that, 
with her imperious temper, she so long hesi- 
tated to strike the fatal blow. 

Whether Mary committed the dark crimes 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 93 

attributed to her or not, we do not know. 
But we do know, that after the murder of 
her wretched husband, Lord Darnley, (her 
cousin, Henry Stuart), she quickly married 
the man to whom the deed was directly 
traced. Her marriage with Bothwell was 
her undoing. Scotland was so indignant 
at the act, that she took refuge in England, 
only to fall into Elizabeth's hands. 

Mary Stuart had oDce audaciously said, 
" the reason her cousin did not marry was 
because she would not lose the power of 
compelling men to make love to her." Per- 
haps the memory of this jest made it easier Mary stuart's 
to sign the fatal paper in 1587. Death - 1587 - 

When we read of Mary's irresistible 
charm, of her audacity, her cunning, her 
genius for diplomacy and statecraft, far 
exceeding Elizabeth's — when we read of all 
this and think of the blood of the Guises in 
her veins, and the precepts of Catharine de 
Medici in her heart, we realize what her 
usurpation would have meant for England, 
and feel that she was a menace to the State, 
and justly incurred her fate. Then again, 
when we hear of her gentle patience in her 



94 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



James VI., 

King of 

Scotland. 

Defeat of 

Spanish 

Armada, 

1588. 



long captivity, her prayers and piety, and her 
sublime courage when she walked through 
the Hall at Fotheringay Castle, and laid 
her beautiful head on the block as on a pil- 
low, we are melted to pity, and almost re- 
volted at the act. It is difficult to be just, 
with such a lovely criminal, unless one is 
made of such stern stuff as was John Knox. 
The son of Mary by Henry Stuart (Lord 
Darnley) was James VI. of Scotland. His 
pretensions to the English throne were now 
seemingly forever at rest. But Philip of 
Spain thought the time propitious for 
his own ambitious purposes, and sent an 
Armada (fleet) which approached the Coast 
in the form of a great Crescent, one mile 
across. The little English " seadogs, " not 
much larger than small pleasure yachts, 
were led by Sir Francis Drake. They wor- 
ried the ponderous Spanish ships, and then, 
sending burning boats in amongst them, 
soon spoiled the pretty crescent. The fleet 
scattered along the Northern Coast, where it 
was overtaken by a frightful storm, and the 
winds and the waves completed the victory, 
almost annihilating the entire "Armada." 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 95 

England was great and glorious. The 
revolution, religious, social and political, 
had ploughed and harrowed the surface 
which had been fertilized with the "New 
Learning," and the harvest was rich. 
While all Europe was devastated by relig- 
ious wars there arose in Protestant England 
such an era of peace and prosperity, with 
all the conditions of living so improved that 
the dreams of Sir Thomas More's " Utopia" 
seemed almost realized. The new culture 
was everywhere. England was garlanded 
with poetry, and lighted by genius, such 
as the world has not seen since, and may 
never see again. The name of Francis 
Bacon was sufficient to adorn an age, and 
that of Shakespeare alone, enough to illu- 
mine a century. Elizabeth did not create 
the glory of the "Elizabethan Age," but 
she did create the peace and social order 
from which it sprang. 

If this Queen ever loved any one it was 
the Earl of Leicester, the man who sent his 
lovely wife, Amy Eobsart, to a cruel death 
in the delusive hope of marrying a Queen. 
We are unwilling to harbor the suspicion 



Francis Bacon, 



96 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

that she was accessory to this deed ; and yet 
we cannot forget that she was the daughter 
of Henry VIII. ! — and sometimes wonder if 
the memory of a crime as black as Mary's 
haunted her sad old age, when sated with 
pleasures and triumphs, lovers no more 
whispering adulation in her ears, and mir- 
rors banished from her presence, she silently 
waited for the end. 

She died in the year 1603, and succumb- 
ing to the irony of fate, — and possibly as 
an act of reparation for the fatal paper 
signed in 1587, — she named the son of Mary 
Stuart, James VI. of Scotland, her successor, 
— James I. of England. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The House of Stuart had peacefully House of 



reached the long coveted throne of England 
in the person of a most unkingly King. 
Gross in appearance and vulgar in manners, 
James had none of the royal attributes of 
his mother. A great deal of knowledge had 
been crammed into a very small mind. 
Conceited, vain, pedantic, headstrong, he 
set to work with the confidence of ignorance 
to carry out his undigested views upon all 
subjects, reversing at almost every point 
the policy of his great predecessor. Where 
she with supreme tact had loosened the 
screws so that the great authority vested in 
her might not press too heavily upon the 
nation, he tightened them. Where she 
bowed her imperious will to that of the 
Commons, this puny tyrant insolently defied 
it, and swelling with sense of his own great- 



Stuart, 
1603-1714. 



98 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

ness, claimed " Divine right" for Kingship 
and demanded that his people should say 
"the King can do no wrong," "to question 
his authority is to question that of God." 
If he ardently supported the Church of Eng- 
land, it was because he was its head. The 
Catholic who would have turned the Church 
authority over again to the Pope, and the 
"Puritans" who resisted the "Popish prac- 
tices" of the Eeformed Church of England, 
were equally hateful to him, for one and 
the same reason ; they were each aiming to 
diminish his authority. 

When the Puritans brought to him a peti- 
tion signed by 800 clergymen, praying that 
they be not compelled to wear the surplice, 
nor make the sign of the cross at baptism — 
he said they were "vipers," and if they did 
not submit to the authority of the Bishops 
in such matters "they should be harried out 
of the land.'" In the persecution implied 
by this threat, a large body of Puritans es- 
caped to Holland with their families, and 
thence came that band of heroic men and 
Coiony g in wo men on the "Mayflower," landing at a 
point on the American Coast which they 



New England. 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 99 

called " Plymouth" (1620). A few English- 
men had in 1607 settled in Jamestown, Vir- 
ginia. These two colonies contained the 
germ of the future "United States of 
America." 

The persecution of the Catholics led to 
a plot to blow up Parliament House at a 
time when the King was present, thinking 
thus at one stroke to get rid of a usurping 
tyrant, and of a House of Commons which 
was daily becoming more and more infected 
with Puritanism. The discovery of this 
"GuyFawkes gunpowder plot," prevented Gunpowder 
its consummation, and immensely strength- 
ened Puritan sentiment. 

The keynote of Elizabeth's foreign policy 
had been hostility to Spain, that Catholic 
stronghold, and an unwavering adherence to 
Protestant Europe. James saw in that 
great and despotic government the most 
suitable friend for such a great King as 
himself. He proposed a marriage between 
his son Charles and the Infanta, daughter 
of the King of Spain, making abject promises 
of legislation in his Kingdom favorable to 
the Catholics; and when an indignant House 



Plot, 1605. 



Francis Bacon. 



100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

of Commons protested against the marriage, 
they were insolently reprimanded for med- 
dling with things which did not concern 
them, and were sent home, not to be recalled 
again until the King's necessities for money 
compelled him to summon them. 

During the early part of his reign the 
people seem to have been paralyzed and 
speechless before his audacious pretensions. 
Great courtiers were fawning at his feet 
listening to his pedantic wisdom, and hu- 
moring his theory of the " Divine right" of 
hereditary Kingship. And alas! — that we 
have to say it — Francis Bacon (his Chancel- 
lor), with intellect towering above his cen- 
tury, — was his obsequious servant and tool, 
uttering not one protest as one after another 
the liberties of the people were trampled 
upon! 

But this Spanish marriage had aroused a 
spirit before which a wiser man than James 
would have trembled. He was standing 
midway between two scaffolds, that of his 
mother (1587), and his son (1649). Every 
blow he struck at the liberties of England 
cut deep into the foundation of his throne. 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 101 

And when he violated the law of the land by 
the imposition of taxes, without the sanc- 
tion of his Parliament, he had "sowed the 
wind" and the "whirlwind," which was to 
break on his son's head was inevitable. 
Popular indignation began to be manifest, 
and Puritan members of the Commons began 
to use language the import of which could 
not be mistaken. Bacon was disgraced ; his 
crime, — while ostensibly the "taking of 
bribes," — was in reality his being the servile 
tool of the King. 

In reviewing the acts of this reign we see 
a foolish Sovereign ruled by an intriguing 
adventurer whom he created Duke of Buck- 
ingham. We see him foiled in his attempt to 
link the fate of England with that of Cath- 
olic Europe ; — sacrificing Sir Walter Raleigh 
because he had given offense to Spain, the 
country whose friendship he most desired. 
We see numberless acts of folly, and but 
three which we can commend. James did 
authorize and promote the translation of 
the Bible which has been in use until to- ^^^ 
day. He named his double Kingdom of Great Britain. 
England and Scotland "Great Britain." 



James' Death, 
1625. 



102 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

These two acts, together with his death in 
1625, meet with our entire approval. 
charies i., Charles I. , son of James, was at least one 

1625-1649. ' __ 

thing which his father was not. He was a 
gentleman. Had it not been his misfor- 
tune to inherit a crown, his scholarly refine- 
ments and exquisite tastes, his irreproach- 
able morals, and his rectitude in the per- 
sonal relations of life, might have won him 
only esteem and honor. But these qualities 
belonged to Charles Stuart the gentleman. 
Charles the King was imperious, false, ob- 
stinate, blind to the conditions of his time, 
and ignorant of the nature of his people. 
Every step taken during his reign led him 
nearer to its fatal consummation. 

No family in Europe ever grasped at 
power more unscrupulously than the Guises 
in France. They were cruel and remorseless 
in its pursuit. It was the warm southern 
blood of her mother which was Mary 
Stuart's ruin. She was a Guise, — and so 
was her son James I. — and so was Charles 
I., her grandson. There was despotism and 
tyranny in their blood. Their very natures 
made it impossible that they should com- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 103 

prehend the Anglo-Saxon ideal of civil lib- 
erty. 

Who can tell what might have been the 
course of History, if England had been ruled 
by English Kings, which it has not been 
since the Conquest. With every royal mar- 
riage there is a fresh infusion of foreign 
blood drawn from fountains not always the 
purest, — until after centuries of such dilu- 
tions, the royal line has less of the Anglo- 
Saxon in it than any ancestral line in the 
Kingdom. 

The odious Spanish marriage had been 
abandoned and Charles had married Henri- 
etta, sister of Louis XIII. of France. 

The subject of religion was the burning 
one at that time. It soon became apparent 
that the new King's personal sympathies 
leaned as far as his position permitted to- 
ward Catholicism. The Church of England 
under its new Primate, Archbishop Laud, r Laud.° P 
was being drawn farther away from Prot- 
estantism and closer to Papacy ; while Laud 
in order to secure Royal protection advocated 
the absolutism of the King, saying that 
James in his theory of "Divine right" had 



104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

been inspired by the Holy Ghost, thus turn- 
ing religion into an engine of attack upon 
English liberties. Laud's ideal was a puri- 
fied Catholicism — retaining auricular con- 
fession, prayers for the dead, the Eeal 
Presence in the Sacrament, genuflexions 
and crucifixes, all of which were odious to 
Puritans and Presbyterians. He had a bold, 
narrow mind, and recklessly threw himself 
against the religious instincts of the time. 
The same pulpit from which was read a 
proclamation ordering that the Sabbath be 
treated as a holiday, and not a Holy-day, 
was also used to tell the people that resist- 
ance to the King's will was "Eternal dam- 
nation." 

This made the Puritans seem the defend- 
ers of the liberties of the country, and drew 
hosts of conservative Churchmen, such as 
Pym, to their side, although not at all in 
sympathy with a religious fanaticism which 
condemned innocent pleasures, and all the 
things which adorn life, as mere devices of 
the devil. Such were the means by which 
the line was at last sharply drawn. The 
Church of England and tyranny on one 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 105 

side, and Puritanism and liberty on the 
other. 

But there was one thing which at this 
moment was of deeper interest to the King 
than religion. He wanted, — he must have, 
— money. Religion and money are the two 
things upon which the fate of nations has 
oftenest hung. These two dangerous fac- 
tors were both present now, and they were 
going to make history very fast. 

On account of a troublesome custom pre- 
vailing in his Kingdom, Charles must first 
summon his Parliament, and they must 
grant the needed supplies. His father had 
by the discovery of the theory of " Divine 
right," prepared the way to throw off these 
Parliamentary trammels. But that could 
only be reached by degrees. So Parliament 
was summoned. It had no objection to 
voting the needed subsidies, but, — the King 
must first promise certain reforms, political 
and religious, and — dismiss his odious Min- 
ister Buckingham. 

Charles, indignant at this outrage, dis- 
solved the body, and appealed to the country 
for a loan. The same reply came from 



106 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

every quarter. " We will gladly lend the 
money, but it must be done through Parlia- 
ment." The King was thoroughly aroused. 
If the loan will not be voluntary, it must 
be forced. A tax was levied, fines and pen- 
alties for its resistance meted out by sub- 
servient judges. 
John John Hampden was one of the earliest 

Hampden. • , • TT . i .-, 

Petition of victims. His means were ample, the sum 

Right. was small, but his manhood was great. 

"Not one farthing, if it cost me my life," 

was his reply as he sat in the prison at Gate 

House. 

The supply did not meet the King's de- 
mand. Overwhelmed with debt and shame 
and rage, he was obliged again to resort to 
the hated means. Parliament was sum- 
moned. The Commons, with memory of 
recent outrages in their hearts, were more 
determined than before. The members 
drew up a "Petition of Right," which was 
simply a reaffirmation of the inviolability of 
the rights of person, of property and of 
speech — a sort of second "Magna Charta." 

They resolutely and calmly faced their 
King, the "Petition" in one hand, the 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 107 

granted subsidies in the other. For a while 
he defied them ; but the judges were whis- 
pering in his ear that the "Petition" would 
not be binding upon him, and Buckingham 
was urging him to yield. Perhaps it was 
Charles Stuart the gentleman who hesi- 
tated to receive money in return for solemn 
promises which he did not intend to keep! 
But Charles the King signed the paper, which, 
seven judges out of twelve, in the highest 
court of the realm, were going to pro- 
nounce invalid because the King's power 
was beyond the reach of Parliament. It 
was inherent in him as King, and bestowed 
by God. Any infringement upon his pre- 
rogative by Act of Parliament was void ! 

With king so false, and with justice so 
polluted at its fountain, what hope was 
there for the people but in Kevolution? 

From the tyranny of the Church under 
Laud, a way was opened when, in 1629, 
Charles granted a Charter to the Colony of chartered, 1629. 
Massachusetts. With a quiet, stern enthu- 
siasm the hearts of men turned toward that 
refuge in America. Not men of broken for- 
tunes, adventurers, and criminals, but own- 



108 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

ers of large landed estates, professional 
men, some of the best in the land, who 
abandoned home and comfort to face intol- 
erable hardships. One wrote, "We are 
weaned from the delicate milk of our 
Mother England and do not mind these 
trials." As the pressure increased under 
Laud, the stream toward the West increased 
in volume; so that in ten years 20,000 Eng- 
lishmen had sought religious freedom across 
the sea, and had founded a Colony which, 
strange to say, — under the influence of an 
intense religious sentiment, — became itself a 
Theocracy and a new tyranny, although one 
sternly just and pure. 

The dissolute, worthless Buckingham had 
been assassinated, and Charles had wept 
passionate tears over his dead body. But 
his place had been filled by one far better 
suited to the King's needs at a time when he 
had determined not again to recall Parlia- 
ment, but to rule without it until resistance 
to his measures had ceased. 

It was with no sinister purpose of estab- 
lishing a despotism such as a stronger man 
might have harbored, that he made this 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 109 

resolve. What Charles wanted was simply 
the means of filling his exchequer; and if 
Parliament would not give him that except 
by a dicker for reforms, and humiliating 
pledges which he could not keep, why then 
he would find new ways of raising money 
without them. His father had done it be- 
fore him, he had done it himself. With no 
Commons there to rate and insult him, it 
could be done without hindrance. 

He was not grand enough, nor base 
enough, nor was he rich enough, to carry 
out any organized design upon the country. 
He simply wanted money, and had such 
blind confidence in Kingship, that any very 
serious resistance to his authority did not 
enter his dreams. It was the limitations of 
his intelligence which proved his ruin, his 
inability to comprehend a new condition in 
the spirit of his people. Elizabeth would 
have felt it, though she did not understand 
it, and would have loosened the screws, 
without regard for her personal preferences, 
and by doing it, so bound the people to her, 
that her policy would have been their 
policy. Charles was as wise as the en- 



110 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

gineer who would rivet down the safety- 
valves ! 

Sir Thomas Wentworth (Earl Strafford), 
who had taken the place of Buckingham, 
was an apostate from the party of liberty. 
Disappointed in becoming a leader in the 
Commons he had drawn gradually closer to 
the King, who now leaned upon him as the 
vine upon the oak. 

This man's ideal was to build up in Eng- 
land just such a despotism as Kichelieu was 
building in France. The same imperious 

Earl Strafford. , ,, ...,,.. 

The "star temper, the same invincible will and admm- 
chamber." istrative genius, marked him as fitted for the 
work. While Charles was feebly scheming 
for revenue, he was laying large and com- 
prehensive plans for a system of oppression, 
which should yield the revenue, — and for 
Arsenals and Forts — and a standing Army, 
and a rule of terror which should hold the 
nation in subjection while these things were 
preparing. He was clear-sighted enough to 
see that "absolutism" was not to be accom- 
plished by a system of reasoning. He would 
not urge it as a dogma, but as a fact. 

The "Star Chamber," a tribunal for the 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Ill 

trying of a certain class of offences, was 
brought to a state of fresh efficiency. Its 
punishments could be anything this side of 
death. A clergyman accused of speaking 
disrespectfully of Laud, is condemned to 
pay £5,000 to the King, £300 to the ag- 
grieved Archbishop himself, one side of his 
nose is to be slit, one ear cut off, and one 
cheek branded. The next week this to be 
repeated on the other side, and then fol- 
lowed by imprisonment subject to pleasure 
of the Court. Another who has written a 
book considered seditious, has the same sen- 
tence carried out, only varied by imprison- 
ment for life. 

These were some of the embellishments of 
the system called "Thorough," which was 
carried on by the two friends and confeder- 
ates, Laud and Strafford, who were in their 
pleasant letters to each other all the time 
lamenting that the power of the "Star 
Chamber" was so limited, and judges so 
timid ! Is it strange that the plantation in 
Massachusetts had fresh recruits? 

But the more serious work was going on 
under Strafford's vigorous management. 



112 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

"Monopolies" were sold once more, with a 
fixed duty on profits added to the price of 
the original concession. Every article in 
use by the people was at last bought up by 
Monopolists, who were compelled to add to 
the price of these commodities, to compen- 
sate for the tax they must pay into the 
King's Treasury. 
Monopolies. " Ship Money" was a tax supposably for 
the building of a Navy, for which there was 
no accounting to the people, the amount 
and frequency of the levy being discretion- 
ary with the King. It was always possible 
and imminent, and was the most odious of 
all the methods adopted for wringing money 
from the nation, while resistance to it, as to 
all other such measures, was punished by 
the Star Chamber in such pleasant fashion 
as would please Strafford and Laud, whose 
creatures the judges were. 

Hampden, as before, championed the 
rights of the people in his own person, 
going to prison and facing death, if it were 
necessary, rather than pay the amount of 
20 shillings. But that the taxes were 
paid by the people is evident, for so success- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 113 

ful was this scheme of revenue that many 
predicted the King would never again call 
a Parliament. What would be the need of 
a Parliament, if he did not require money? 
The Eoyalists were pleased, and the people 
were wisely patient, knowing that such a 
financial fabric must fall at the first breath 
of a storm, and then their time would 
come. 



CHAPTER IX 

The storm came in the form of a war 
upon Scotland, to enforce the established 
Church, which it had cast out "root and 
branch" for the Presbyterianism which 
pleased it. The Loyalists were alarmed by 
rumors that Scotland was holding treas- 
onable communication with her old ally, 
France; and after an interval of eleven 
years, a Parliament was summoned, which 
Long was destined to outlive the King. 

Parliament. 

strafford The Commons came together in stern 

impeached. temperj p ym standing promptly at the Bar 
of the House of Lords with Strafford's im- 
peachment for High Treason. The great 
Earl's apologists among the Lords, his own 
ingenious and powerful pleadings, the 
King's entreaties and worthless promises, 
all were in vain. 

The King saw the whole fabric of tyranny 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 



115 



crumbling before his eyes. He was over- 
awed and dared not refuse his signature to 
the fatal paper. It is said that as Strafford 
passed to the block, Laud, who was at the 
window of the room where he too was a 
prisoner, fainted as his old companion in 
cruelty stopped to say farewell to him. 

There were a few moments of silence, 
then, — a wild exultant shout. "His head 
is off — His head is off." 

The execution of the Archbishop swiftly 
followed, then the abolition of the Star 
Chamber, and of the High Commission 
Court; then a bill was passed requiring 
that Parliament be summoned once in three 
years, and a law enacted forbidding its 
dissolution except by its oivn consent. 

They were rapidly nearing the conception 
that Parliament does not exist by sanction 
of the King, but the King by sanction of 
Parliament. 

What could be done with a King whom 
no promises could bind — who, while in the 
act of giving solemn pledges to Parliament 
in order to save Strafford, was perfidiously 
planning to overawe it by military force? 



Strafford's 

Death. 

Death of 

Laud. 



116 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

The attempted arrest of Hampden, Pym, 
and three other leaders was part of this 
" Army Plot, " which made civil war inevi- 
table. The trouble had resolved itself into 
a deadly conflict between King and Parlia- 
ment. If he resorted to arms, so must 
they. 

If Hampden stands out pre-eminent as the 
Champion who like a great Gladiator fought 
the battle of civil freedom, Pym is no less 
conspicuous in having grasped the principles 
on which it must be fought. He saw that 
if either Crown or Parliament must go 
down, better for England that it should be 
the crown. He saw also, that the vital 
principle in Parliament lay in the House of 
Commons. If the King refused to act with 
them, it should be treated as an abdication, 
and Parliament must act without him, and 
if the Lords obstructed reform, then they 
must be told that the Commons must act 
alone, rather than let the Kingdom per- 
ish. 

This was the theory upon which the fu- 
ture action was based. Revolutionary and 
without precedent it has since been accepted 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 117 

as the correct construction of English Con- 
stitutional principles. 

Better would it have been for Charles 
had he let the ship sail, which was to have 
borne Hampden and Oliver Cromwell (cousin cromweu. 
of the latter) toward the "Valley of the 
Connecticut." When he gave that order, 
he recalled the man who was to be his evil 
genius. Cromwell could not so accurately 
have defined the constitutional right of his 
cause as Pym had done, nor make himself 
its adored head as was Hampden; but he 
had a more compelling genius than either. 
His figure stands up colossal and grim away 
above all others from the time he raised his 
praying, psalm-singing army, until the de- 
feat of the King's forces at Naseby (1645), 
the flight of the King and his subsequent 
surrender. 

It was at this time that Cromwell began 
to manifest as much ability as a political as 
he had done as a military leader. Hamp- 
den had fallen on the battlefield, Pym was 
dead, he was virtual head of the cause. 
Perhaps it needed just such a terrible, un- 
compromising instrument, to carry Eng- 



118 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

land over such a crisis as was before her. 
Not overscrupulous about means, no trou- 
blesome theories about Church or State — no 
reverence for anything but God and "the 
Gospel." 

When Parliament halted and hesitated 
at the last about the trial of the King, it 
was the iron hand of Cromwell which 
strangled opposition, by placing a body of 
troops at the door, and excluding 140 doubt- 
ful members. A Parliament, with the 
House of Lords effaced, and with 140 ob- 
structing members excluded, leaving only a 
small body of men of the same mind, sus- 
tained by the moral sentiment of a Crom- 
wellian Army, — can scarcely be called a 
Representative body; nor can it be consid- 
ered competent to create a Court for the 
trial of a King! It was only justifiable as 
a last and desperate measure of self- 
defence. 
Death of Charles wins back some of our sympathy 

Charles I 1649. 

and esteem by dying like a brave man and 
a gentleman. He conducted himself with 
marvellous dignity and self - possession 
throughout the trial, and at the end of 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 119 

seven days, laid his head upon the block 
in front of his royal palace of Whitehall. 

That small body of men, calling itself the 
" House of Commons, " declared England a 
"Commonwealth," which was to be gov- 
erned without any King or House of Lords. 
Cromwell was " Lord Protector of England, 
Scotland and Ireland." He scorned to be 
called King, but no King was ever more 
absolute in authority. It was a righteous 
tyranny, replacing a vicious one. 

There was no longer an eager hand dip- 
ping into the pockets of the people, com- 
pelling the poor to share his scanty earn- 
ings with the King. There was safety, and 
there was prosperity. But there was rage 
and detestation, as Cromwell's soldiers with 
gibes and jeers, hewed and hacked at ven- 
erable altars and pictures, and insulted the 
religious sentiment of one-half the people. 
Empty niches, mutilated carvings, and 
fragments of stained glass, from 

"Windows richly dight, 
Casting a dim religious light, " 

show us to-day the track of those profane 
fanatics. 



120 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

When the remnant of the House of Com- 
mons calling itself a Parliament was not 
alert enough in its obedience, Cromwell 
marched into the Hall with a company of 
musketeers, and calling them names neither 
choice nor flattering, ordered them to "get 
out," then locked the door, and put the key 
into his pocket. Such was the "dissolu- 
tion" of a Parliament which had been strong 
parliament enough to overthrow a Government, and 
Dispersed. to sen( j a King to the Scaffold ! This might 
be fittingly described as a personal Govern- 
ment! 

He was loved by none but the Army. 
There was no strong current of popular sen- 
timent to uphold him as he carried out his 
arbitrary purposes; no engines of cruelty 
to fortify his authority; no "Star Cham- 
ber" to enforce his order. Men were not 
being nailed by the ears to the pillory, nor 
mutilated and branded, for resisting his 
will. But the spectacle was for that reason 
all the more astonishing: a great nation, 
full of rage, hate and bitterness, but silent 
and submissive under the spell of one domi- 
nating personality. 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 121 

He had no experience in diplomatic 
usages, no skilled ministers to counsel and 
warn, but by his foreign policy he made him- 
self the terror of Europe; Spain, France, 
and the United Provinces courting his friend- 
ship, while Protestantism had protection at 
home and abroad. 

That the man who did this had a com- 
manding genius, all must be agreed. But 
whether he was the incarnation of evil, or 
of righteousness, must ever remain in dis- 
pute. We shall never know whether or not 
his death, in 1658, cut short a career which 
might have passed from a justifiable to an 
unjustifiable tyranny. 

A fabric held up by one sustaining hand, 
must fall when that hand is withdrawn. 
Cromwell left none who could support his 
burden. Charles II., who had been more 
than once foiled in trying to get in by the 
back door of his father's kingdom, was now 
invited to enter by the front, and amid 
shouts of joy was placed on the throne. 



Charles II., 
1660. 



CHAPTER X. 

Time brings its revenges. The instinct 
for beauty, and for joy and gladness, had 
been for twenty-one years repressed by 
harshly administered Puritanism. There 
was a thrill of delight in greeting a gra- 
cious, smiling king, who would lift the 
spell of gloom from the nation. Charles 
did this, more fully than was expected. 
Never was the law of reaction more fully 
demonstrated! The Court was profligate, 
and the age licentious. The reign of Charles 
was an orgy. When he needed more money 
for his pleasures, he bargained with Louis 
XIV. to join that king in a war upon Prot- 
estantism in Holland, for the consideration 
of £200,000 ! 

We wonder how he dared thus to goad 
and prod the British Lion, which had de- 
voured his Father. But that animal had 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



123 



Corpus, 1679. 



grown patient since the Protectorate. Eng- 
land treated Charles like a spoiled child 
whose follies entertained her, and whose mis- 
demeanors she had not the heart to punish. 

The "Roundheads," who had trampled 
upon the "Cavaliers," were now trampled 
upon in return. But even at such a time as 
this the liberties of the people were expand- 
ing. The Act of "Habeas Corpus" forever Act of Habeas 
prevented imprisonment, without showing 
in Court just cause for the detention of the 
prisoner. 

The House of Stuart, those children of 
the Guises, was always Catholic at heart, 
and Charles was at no pains to conceal his 
preferences. A wave of Catholicism alarmed 
the people, who tried to divert the succes- 
sion from James, the brother of the King, 
who was extreme and fanatical in his devo- 
tion to the Church of Rome. But in 1685, 
the Masks and routs and revels were inter- 
rupted. The pleasure-loving Charles, who 
"had never said a foolish thing, and never 
done a wise one," lay dead in his palace at 
Whitehall, and James II. was King of Eng- 
land. 



Death of 

Charles II., 

1685. 



Bunyan. 



124 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

Three names have illumined this reign, in 
other respects so inglorious. In 1666 New- 
ton discovered the law of gravitation and 
created a new theory of the Universe. In 
Mnton and 1667 Milton published "Paradise Lost," and 
in 1672 Bunyan gave to the world his al- 
legory, "Pilgrim's Progress." There was 
no inspiration to genius in the cause of 
King and Cavaliers. But the stern prob- 
lems of Puritanism touched two souls with 
the divine afflatus. The sacred Epic of 
Milton, sublime in treatment as in concep- 
tion, must ever stand unique and solitary 
in literature; while "Pilgrim's Progress," 
in plain homely dish served the same heav- 
enly food. The theme of both was the 
problem of sin and redemption with which 
the Puritan soul was gloomily struggling. 

The reign of James II. was the last effort 
of royal despotism to recover its own. He 
tried to recall the right of Habeas Corpus; 
— to efface Parliament — and to overawe the 
Clergy, while insidiously striving to estab- 
lish Papacy as the religion of the Kingdom. 
Chief Justice Jeffries, that most brutal of 
men, was his efficient aid, and boasted that 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



125 



he had in the service of James hanged more 
traitors than all his predecessors since the 
Conquest ! 

The names Whig and Tory had come 
into existence in this struggle. Whig 
standing for the opponents to Catholic dom- 
ination, and Tory for the upholders of the 
King. But so flagrantly was the Catholic 
policy of James conducted, that his up- 
holders were few. In three years from his 
accession, Whig and Tory alike were so 
alarmed, that they secretly sent an invita- 
tion to the King's son-in-law, William, 
Prince of Orange, to come and accept the 
Crown. 

William responded at once, and when he 
landed with 14,000 men, James, paralyzed, 
powerless, unable to raise a force to meet 
him, abandoned his throne without a strug- 
gle and took refuge in France. 

The throne was formally declared vacant 
and William and Mary his wife were in- 
vited to rule jointly the Kingdom of Eng- 
land, Ireland and Scotland (1689). 

The House of Stuart, which seems to have 
brought not one single virtue to the throne, 



James n. 
Deposed. 



William and 

Mary 

1689-1702. 



126 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

was always secretly conspiring with Catholi- 
cism in Europe. Louis XIV., as the head 
of Catholic Europe at this time, was the 
natural protector of the dethroned King. 
His aim had long been, to bring England 
into the Catholic European alliance, and, of 
course, if possible, to make it a dependency 
of France. A conspiracy with Louis to ac- 
complish this end occupied England's exiled 
King during the rest of his life. 

But European Protestantism had for its 
leader the man who now sat upon the 
throne of England. In fact he had prob- 
ably accepted that throne in order to further 
his larger plans for defeating the expanding 
power of Louis XIV. in Europe. Broad and 
comprehensive in his statesmanship, noble 
and just in character, an able military 
leader, England was safe in his strong 
hand. Conspiracies were put down, one 
French army after another, with the des- 
picable James at its head, was driven back ; 
the purpose at one time being to establish 
James at the head of an independent King- 
dom in Catholic Ireland. But that would- 
be King of Ireland was humiliated and sent 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 127 

back to France by the battle of Boyne Battle of 

, v Boyne, 1600. 

^IbyUJ. Bill of Rights. 

As important as was all this, things of 
even greater moment were going on in the 
life of England at this time. As a wise 
householder employs the hours of sunshine 
to repair the leaks revealed by the storm, 
just so Parliament now set about strength- 
ening and riveting the weak spots revealed 
by the storms which had swept over Eng- 
land. 

What the " Magna Charta" and " Petition 
of Right" had asserted in a general way, 
was now by the "Bill of Bights," estab- 
lished by specific enactments, which one 
after another declared what the King 
should and what he should not do. One 
of these Acts touched the very central 
nerve of English freedom. 

If religion and money are the two impor- 
tant factors in the life of a nation, it is 
money upon which its life from day to day 
depends ! A Government can exist without 
money about as long as a man without air! 
So the act which gave to the House of 
Commons exclusive power to grant supplies, 



128 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and also to determine to what use they 
shall be applied, transferred the real au- 
thority to the people, whose will the Com- 
mons express. 

The struggle between the Crown and 
Parliament ends with this, and the theory 
of Pym is vindicated. The Sovereign and 
the House of Lords from that time could 
no more take money from the Treasury of 
England, than from that of France. Hence- 
forth there can be no differences between 
King and people. They must be friends. A 
Ministry which forfeits the friendship of the 
Commons, cannot stand an hour, and sup- 
plies will stop until they are again in accord. 
In other words, the Government of England 
had become a Government of the people. 

William regarded these enactments as 
evidence of a lack of confidence in him. 
Conscious of his own magnanimous aims, 
of his power and his purpose to serve Eng- 
land as she had not been served before, he 
felt hurt and wounded at fetters which 
had not been placed upon such Kings as 
Charles I. and his sons. We wonder that 
a man so exalted and so superior, did not 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 129 

see that it was for future England that 
these laws were framed, for a time when 
perhaps a Prince not generous, and noble, 
and pure should be upon the throne. 

William was silent, grave, cold, reserved 
almost to sternness. He had none of the 
qualities which awaken personal enthusi- 
asm. He was one of those great leaders 
who are worshipped from afar. Besides, it 
is not an easy task to rule another's house- 
hold. Benefits however great, reforms 
however wise, are sure to be considered an 
impertinence by some. Then — there might 
be another "Kestoration," and wary ambi- 
tious nobles were cautiously making a rec- 
ord which would not unfit them for its 
benefits when it came. He lived in an 
atmosphere of conspiracy, suspicion, and 
loyalty grudgingly bestowed. But these 
were only the surface currents. Anglo- 
Saxon England recognized in this foreign 
King, a man with the same race instincts, 
the same ideals of integrity, honor, justice 
and personal liberty, as her own; qualities 
possessed by few of her native sovereigns 
since the good King Alfred. 



130 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

The expensive wars carried on against 
James and his confederate, Louis XIV., 
compelled loans which were the begin- 
ning of the National Debt. That and the 
establishing of the Bank of England, form 
part of the history of this reign. 

In 1702 William died, and Mary having 
also died a few years earlier, the succession 
passed to her sister Anne, who was to be 
the last Sovereign of the House of Stuart. 



CHAPTER XI. 

William's policy had not been bounded by Anne, Queen 
his Island Kingdom. It included the cause 
of Protestant Europe. An apparently in- 
vincible King sat on the throne of France, 
gradually drawing all adjacent Kingdoms 
into his dominion. When in defiance of 
past pledges he placed his grandson upon 
the vacant throne of Spain, and declared 
that the Pyrenees should exist no more, 
even Catholic Austria revolted, and begin- 
ning to fear Louis more than Protestantism, 
new combinations were formed, England 
still holding aloof, and striving to keep out 
of the Alliance. But that all-absorbing 
King had long ago fixed his eye upon Eng- 
land as his future prey, and when he re- 
fused to recognize Anne as lawful Queen 
and declared his intention of placing the 
"Pretender" (illegitimate son of James) 



132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

upon the throne, there could be no more 
hesitation. This Jupiter who had removed 
the Pyrenees, might wipe out the English 
Channel too ! Hitherto the name Whig had 
stood for the adherents to the war policy, 
and Tory for its opponents. Now, all was 
changed. Even the stupid Anne and her 
Tory friends saw that William's policy must 
be her policy if she would keep her Kingdom. 

Fortunate was it for England, and for 
Marlborough. Europe at this time that a " Marlborough" 
had climbed to distinction by a slender, and 
not too reputable ladder. This man, John 
Churchill, who a few years ago had been 
unknown, without training, almost with- 
out education, was by pure genius fitted to 
become, upon the death of William, the 
guiding spirit of the Grand Alliance. 

He had none of the qualities possessed by 
William, and all the qualities that leader 
had not. He had no moral grandeur, no 
stern adherence to principles. Whig and 
Tory were alike to him, and he followed 
whichever seemed to lead to success, and to 
the richest rewards. He was perfectly sor- 
did in his aims, invincible in his good na- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 133 

ture, with a careless, easy bonhomie which 
captured the hearts of Europeans, who 
called him "the handsome Englishman." 
As adroit in managing men as armies, as 
wise in planning political moves as cam- 
paigns, using tact and diplomacy as effec- 
tually as artillery, he assumed the whole 
direction of the European war; managed 
every negotiation, planned every battle, 
and achieved its great and overwhelming 
success. 

"Blenheim" turned the tide of French Battle of 
victory, and broke the spell of Louis' invin- 
cibility. The loss at that battle was some- 
thing more than men and fortresses. It 
was prestige, and that self-confidence which 
had made the great King believe that 
nothing could resist his purposes. It was 
a new sensation for him to bend his neck, 
and to say that he acknowledged Anne 
Queen of England. 

Marlborough received as his reward the 
splendid estate upon which was built the 
palace of "Blenheim." Then, when in the 
sunshine of peace England needed him no 
more, Anne quarrelled with his wife, her 



Blenheim, 1704. 



134 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

adored friend, and cast him aside as a rusty- 
sword no longer of use. But for years Eu- 
rope heard the song " Malbrook s'en va-t-en 
guerre," and his awe-inspiring name was 
used to frighten children in France and in 
England. 

His passionate love for his wife, Sarah 
Churchill, ran like a golden thread of ro- 
mance through Marlborough's stormy ca- 
reer. On the eve of battle, and in the first 
flush of victory, he must first and last write 
her; and he would more willingly meet 20,- 
000 Frenchmen than his wife's displeasure! 
Indeed Sarah seems to have waged her own 
battles very successfully with her tongue, 
and also to have had her own diplomatic 
triumphs. Through Anne's infatuation for 
her, she was virtually ruler while the friend- 
ship lasted. But to acquire ascendancy over 
Anne was not much of an achievement. 

It is said that there was but one duller 
person than the Queen in her Kingdom, and 
that was the royal Consort, George, Prince 
of Denmark. Happy was it for England 
that of the seventeen children born into this 
royal household, not one survived. The sue- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 135 

cession, in the absence of direct heirs, was 
pledged to George, Elector of Hanover, a 
remote descendant of James I. 

It was during Anne's reign that English 
literature assumed a new character. The 
stately and classic form being set aside for 
a style more familiar, and which concerned 
itself with the affairs of everyday life. Let- 
ters shone with a mild splendor, while 
Steele, Sterne, Swift, Defoe and Fielding 
were writing, and Addison's "Spectator" 
was on every breakfast-table. 

In the year 1714 Anne died, and George Anne died, 1714. 
I., of the House of Hanover, was King of 
England, — an England which, thanks to the 
great soldier and Duke, would never more 
be molested by the intriguing designs of a 
French King, and which held in her hand 
Gibraltar, the key to the Mediterranean. 

King George I. was a German grandson House of 
of Elizabeth, sister of Charles I. Deeply Ha Georg e i' 14 ' 
attached to his own Hanover, this stupid 
old man came slowly and reluctantly to as- 
sume his new honors. He could not speak 
English; and as he smoked his long pipe, 
his homesick soul was soothed by the ladies 



136 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

of his Court, who cut caricature figures out 
of paper for his amusement, while Kobert 
Walpole relieved him of affairs of State. As 
ignorant of the politics of England as of its 
language, Walpole selected the King's Min- 
isters and determined the policy of his 
Government ; establishing a precedent which 
has always been followed. Since that time 
it has been the duty of the Prime Minister 
to form the Ministry; and no sovereign 
since Anne has ever appeared at a Cabinet 
Council, nor has refused assent to a single 
Act of Parliament. 

Such a King was merely a symbol of 
Protestantism and of Constitutional Gov- 
ernment. But this stream of royal dulness 
which set in from Hanover in 1714, came 
as a great blessing at the time. It enabled 
England to be ruled for thirty years by the 
party which had since the usurpation of 
James I. stood for the rights of the people, 
whig rule. Walpole created a Whig Government. The 
Whigs had never wavered from certain 
principles upon which they had risen to 
power. There must be no tampering with 
justice, nor with the freedom of the press, 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 137 

nor any attempt to rule independently of 
Parliament. Thirty years of rule under 
these principles converted them into an in- 
tegral part of the national life. The habit 
of loyalty to them was so established by this 
long ascendancy of the Whig party, that 
Englishmen forgot that such things could 
be ; — forgot that it was possible to infringe 
upon the sacred liberties of the people. 

However much " Whig" and "Tory" have 
seemed to change since we first hear of them 
in the time of James I. , they have in fact 
remained essentially the same; the Whigs 
always tending to limit the power of the 
crown, and the Tories to limit that of the 
people. At the time of Walpole the Tories 
had been the supporters of the Pretender 
and of the High Church party, the Whigs 
of the policy of William and Protestantism. 
Their predecessors were the " Cavaliers" and 
" Roundheads, " and their successors to-day 
are found in the " Liberals" and " Conserva- 
tives." 

There was at last peace abroad and pros- 
perity at home. The latter was interrupted 
for a time in 1720 by the speculative mad- 



138 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



South-Sea 
Bubble, 1720. 



Death of 
George, 1727. 



ness created by the "South-Sea Bubble." 
Men were almost crazed by the rise in the 
value of shares from £100 to £1,000; and 
then plunged into despair and ruin when 
they suddenly dropped to nothing. The 
suffering caused by this wreck of fortunes 
was great. But industries revived, and 
prosperity and wealth returned with little 
to disturb them again until the death of 
George I. in 1727; when another George 
came over from Hanover to occupy the 
English throne. 

George II. had one advantage over his 
father. He did speak the English language. 
Nor was he content to smoke his pipe and 
entrust his Kingdom to his Ministers, which 
was a doubtful advantage for the nation. 
But his clever wife, Queen Caroline, believed 
thoroughly in Walpole, and when she was 
controlled by the Minister, and then in turn 
herself controlled the policy of the King, 
that simple gentleman supposed that he, — ■ 
George II., — was ruling his own King- 
dom. His small, narrow mind was inca- 
pable of statesmanship ; but he was a good 
soldier. Methodical, stubborn and passion- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 139 

ate, he was a King who needed to he care- 
fully watched, and adroitly managed, to 
keep him from doing harm. 

There was a young "Pretender" in these The"Youn S 
days (Charles Edward Stuart) , who was con- Pretendcr " 
spiring with Louis XV., as his father had 
done with Louis XIV. , to get to the English 
throne. We see him flitting about Europe 
from time to time, landing here and there 
on the British Coast — until when finally de- 
feated at " Culloden Moor," 1746, this wraith cuiioden Moor, 
of the House of Stuart disappears — dying ob- 
scurely in Rome; and " Wha'll be King but 
Charlie," and "Over the Water to Charlie," 
linger only as the echo of a lost cause. 

There was a time of despondency when 
England seemed to be annexed to Hanover, 
following her fortunes, and sharing her 
misfortunes in the "seven years' war" over "Seven Years' 

J War." 

the Austrian succession, as if the Great 
Kingdom were a mere dependency to the 
little Electorate ; and all to please the stub- 
born King. Desiring peace above all things 
England was no sooner freed from one en- 
tanglement, than she was plunged into an- 
other. 



140 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



British 
Dominion in 
India, 1757. 



Battle of 
Quebec, 1760. 



In India, the English "Merchant Com- 
pany," chartered by Elizabeth in 1600, had 
expanded to a power. One of the native 
Princes, jealous of these foreign intruders 
in Bengal, and roused, it was said, by the 
French to expel them, committed that deed 
at which the world has shuddered ever since. 
One hundred and fifty settlers and traders, 
were thrust into an air-tight dungeon — 
in an Indian midsummer. Maddened with 
heat and with thirst, most of them died be- 
fore morning, trampling upon each other in 
frantic efforts to get air and water. This 
is the story of the " Black Hole of Calcutta ;" 
which led to the victories of Clive, and the 
establishment of English Empire in India, 
1757. 

Two years later a quarrel over the boun- 
daries of their American Colonies brought 
the French and English into direct conflict. 
Gen. Wolfe, the English Commander, was 
killed at the moment of victory in scaling 
the walls of Quebec. Montcalm, the French 
commander, being saved the humiliation of 
seeing the loss of Canada (1760), by sharing 
the same fate. 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 141 

The dream of French Empire in America 
was at an end ; and with the cession of 
Florida by Spain, England was mistress of 
the eastern half of the Continent from Nova 
Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the 
Atlantic to the Mississippi. So since the 
days of Elizabeth, and from seed dropped 
by her hand, an Eastern and a Western Em- 
pire had been added to that island King- 
dom, whose highest dream had been to get 
back some of her lost provinces in France. 
Instead of that it was to be her destiny to 
girdle the Earth, so that the Sun in its en- 
tire course should never cease to shine upon 
British Dominions. 

Side by side with the aspiration which 
uplifts a nation, there is always a tendency 
toward degradation, which can only be ar- 
rested by the infusion of a higher spiritual 
life. Strong alcoholic liquors had taken the 
place of beer in England (to avoid the ex- 
cessive tax imposed upon it) and the grossest 
intemperance prevailed in the early part of 
this reign. John Wesley introduced a re- John wesiey. 
generative force when he went about among 
the people preaching "Methodism," a pure 



142 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and simple religion. Not since Augustine 
had the hearts of men been so touched, and 
a new life and new spirit came into being, 
better than all the prosperity and territorial 
expansion of the time. 

Walpole had passed from view long be- 
fore the stirring changes we have alluded 
to. A new hand was guiding the affairs of 
State ; the hand of William Pitt. 



CHAPTER XII. 

At the close of the Seven Years' War, Eng- 
land had driven the French out of Canada, 
— her ships which had traversed the Pacific 
from one end to the other, (Capt. Cook) had 
wherever they touched, claimed islands for 
the Crown; she had projected into the heart 
of India English institutions and civilization. 

Mistress of North America, and of the Pa- 
cific Isles, and future mistress of India, she 
had left in comparative insignificance those 
European States whose power was bounded 
by a single Continent. And all this, — in the 
reign of the puniest King who had ever sat 
upon her throne ! As if to show that Eng- 
land was great not through — but in spite 
of, her Kings. 

When in 1760, George III. came to the George in. 
throne, thirteen prosperous American Col- 
onies were a source of handsome revenue to 



1760-1820. 



144 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the mother country, by whom they were 
regarded as receptacles for surplus popula- 
tion, and a good field for unsuccessful men 
and adventurers. These children were fre- 
quently reminded that they owed England 
a great debt of gratitude. They had cost 
her expensive Indian and French wars for 
which she should expect them to reimburse 
her as their prosperity grew. They were 
to make nothing themselves, not so much as 
a horseshoe; but to send their raw ma- 
terial to English mills and factories, and 
when it was returned to them in wares and 
manufactured articles, they were to pay 
such taxes as were imposed, with grateful 
hearts to the kind Government which was 
so good as to rule them. 

If the Colonies had still needed the pro- 
tection of England from the French, they 
might never have questioned the propriety 
of their treatment. They were at heart in- 
tensely loyal, and the thought of severance 
from the Mother Country probably did not 
exist in a single breast. But they had since 
the fall of Quebec a feeling of security 
which was a good background for inde- 



1765. 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 145 

pendence, if their manhood required its as- 
sertion. They were Anglo-Saxons, and per- 
fectly understood the long struggle for civil 
rights which lay behind them. So when in 
1765 they were told that they must bear 
their share of the burden of National Debt 
which had been increased by wars in their 
behalf, and to that end a "Stamp Act" had stamp Act, 
been passed, they very carefully looked into 
the demand. This Act required that every 
legal document drawn in the Colonies, will, 
deed, note, draft, receipt, etc., be written 
upon paper bearing an expensive Govern- 
ment stamp. 

The thirteen Colonies, utterly at variance 
upon most subjects, were upon this agreed : 
They would not submit to the tax. They 
had read the Magna Charta, they knew that 
the Stamp Act violated its most vital prin- 
ciple. This tax had been framed to extort 
money from men who had no representation 
in Parliament, hence without their consent. 

Pitt vehemently declared that the Act 
was a tyranny, Burke and Fox protested 
against it, the brain and the heart of Eng- 
land compelled the repeal of the Act; Pitt 



146 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

declaring that the spirit shown in America 
was the same that in England had with- 
stood the Stuarts, and refused "Ship 
Money." There was rejoicing and ringing 
of bells over the repeal, but before the 
echoes had died away another plan was 
forming in the narrow recesses of the 
King's brain. 

George III. had read English History. 
He remembered that if Parliaments grow 
obstructive, the way is not to fight them 
but to pack them with the right kind of 
material. Tampering with the boroughs, 
had so filled the House of Commons with 
Tories that it had almost ceased to be a 
representative body, and if Pitt would not 
bow to his wishes, he would find a Minister 
who would. Another tax was devised. 
Tax on Tea. Threepence a pound upon tea, shipped di- 
rect to America from India, would save the 
impost to England, bring tea at a cheaper 
rate to the Colonies (even with the added 
tax), and at the same time yield a handsome 
revenue to the Government. 

The Colonists were not at all moved by 
the idea of getting cheaper tea. They had 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 147 

taken their stand in this matter of taxation 
without representation; they would never 
move from it one inch. When the cargo of 
tea arrived in Boston harbor, it was thrown 
overboard by men disguised as Indians. 

George III. in a rage closed the port of 
Boston, cancelled the Charter of Massa- 
chusetts, withdrew the right of electing its 
own council and judges, investing the Gov- 
ernor with these rights, to whom he also 
gave the power to send rebellious and sedi- 
tious prisoners to England for trial. Then 
to make all this sure of fulfilment, he sent 
troops to enforce the order, in command of 
General Gage, whom he also appointed 
Governor of Massachusetts. 

Fox said, "How intolerable that it should 
be in the power of one blockhead to do so 
much mischief!" The obstinacy of George 
III. cost England her dearest and fairest 
possession. It is almost impossible to pic- 
ture what would be her power to-day if she 
had continued to be mistress of North 
America ! 

All unconscious of his stupendous folly, 
the King was delighted at his own firmness. 



148 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

He rubbed his hands in high glee as he said, — 
" The die is cast, the Colonies must submit 
or triumph," meaning of course that "tri- 
umph" was a thing impossible. Pitt (now 
Earl Chatham), Burke, Fox, even the Tory- 
House of Lords, petitioned and implored in 
vain. The confident, stubborn King stood 
alone, and upon him lies the whole respon- 
sibility — Lord North simply acting as his 
compliant tool. 

The colonies united as one, all local differ- 
ences forgotten. As they fought at Lex- 
ington and at Bunker Hill, the idea of some- 
thing more than resistance was born — the 
idea of independence. 

A letter from the Government addressed 
to the Commander-in-Chief as "George 
Washington, Esq. , " was sent back unopened. 
Battles were lost and won, the courage and 
resources of the Americans holding out for 
years as if by miracle, until when rein- 
forced by France the end drew near; and 
was reached with the defeat of Lord Corn- 
wallis at Yorktown. 

It was a dreary morning in 1782 when a 
humiliated King stood before the House of 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 149 

Lords and acknowledged the independence independence 
of the United States of America ! c °^ ge ' 

Thus ended a contest which the Earl of 
Chatham had said "was conceived in in- 
justice, and nurtured in folly." 

It was during the American war that the 
Press rose to be a great counterbalancing 
power. Popular sentiment no longer find- 
ing an outlet in the House of Commons, 
sought another mode of expression. Public 
opinion gathered in by the newspapers be- 
came a force before which Government 
dared not stand. The "Chronicle," "Post," 
"Herald" and "Times" came into existence, 
philosophers like Coleridge, and statesmen 
like Canning using their columns and com- 
pelling reforms. 

The impeachment of Warren Hastings, impeachment 
conducted by Burke, Sheridan, and Fox, led HastingsTirss. 
to such an exposure of the cruelty and cor 
ruption of the East India Company, that 
the gigantic monopoly was broken up. A 
"Board of Control" was created for the ad- 
ministration of Indian affairs, thus absorb- 
ing it into the general system of English 
Government (1784). 



150 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

James Watt had introduced (in 1769) 
steam into the life of England, with conse- 
quences dire at first, and fraught with such 
tremendous results later, changing all the 
industrial conditions of England and of the 
world. 

In 1789 England witnessed that terrific 
outburst of human passions in France, which 
culminated in the death of a King and a 
Queen. An appalling sight which made 
Eepublicanism seem odious, even to so ex- 
alted and just a soul as Burke, who de- 
nounced it with words of thrilling eloquence. 
Then came Napoleon Bonaparte, and his 
swift ascent to imperial power, followed by 
his audacious conquest almost of Europe, 
until Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wel- 
lington, led the allied army at Waterloo, 
and Napoleon's sun went down. 

In 1812 the United States for a second 
time declared war against England. That 
country had claimed the right to search for 
British-born seamen upon American ships, 
in order to impress them into her own ser- 
vice and recruit her Navy. The "right 
of search" was denied, and the British 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 151 

forces landed in Maryland, burned the Cap- 
itol and Congressional Library at Wash- 
ington, but met their "Waterloo" at New 
Orleans, where they were defeated by Gen- 
eral Andrew Jackson, and the "right of 
search" is heard of no more. 

Long before this time George III. had 
been a prey to blindness, deafness, and in- 
sanity, and in 1820 his death came as a 
welcome event. Had he not been blind, 
deaf, and insane, in 1775, England might 
not have lost her fairest possession. 

The weight of the enormous debt incurred 
by the long wars fell most heavily upon the 
poor. One-half of their earnings went to 
the Crown. The poor man lived under a 
taxed roof, wore taxed clothing, ate taxed 
food from taxed dishes, and looked at the 
light of day through taxed window-glass. 
Nothing was free but the ocean. 

But there must not be cheap bread, for 
that meant reduced rents. The farmer was 
"protected" by having the price of corn kept 
artificially above a certain point, and fur- 
ther "protected" by a prohibitory tax upon 
foreign corn, all in order that the landlord 



152 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

might collect undiminished rentals from his 
farm lands. But, alas! there was no "pro- 
tection" from starvation. Is it strange that 
gaunt famine was a frequent visitor in the 
land? — But men must starve in silence. — 
To beg was a crime. 

" Alas, that bread should be so dear, 
And flesh and blood so cheap !" 

Children six years old worked fourteen 
and fifteen hours daily in mines and fac- 
tories, beaten by overseers to keep them 
awake over their tasks; while others five 
and six years old, driven by blows, crawled 
with their brooms into narrow soot- clogged 
chimneys, and sometimes getting wedged 
in narrow flues, were mercifully suffocated 
and translated to a kinder world. 

A ruinous craving was created for stimu- 
lants, which took the place of insufficient 
food, and in these stunted, pallid, emaciated 
beings a foundation was laid for an en- 
feebled and debased population, which 
would sorely tax the wisdom of statesman- 
ship in the future. 

If such was the condition of the honest 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 153 

working poor, what was that of the crimi- 
nal % It is difficult now to comprehend the fe- 
rocity of laws which made 235 offenses— pun- 
ishable with death, — most of which offenses 
we should now call misdemeanors. But 
perhaps death was better than the prisons, 
which were the abode of vermin, disease 
and filth unspeakable. Jailers asked for no 
pay, but depended upon the money they 
could wring from the wretched beings in 
their charge for food and small alleviations 
to their misery. In 1773 John Howard 
commenced his work in the prisons, and the 
idea was first conceived that the object of 
punishment should be not to degrade sin- 
sick humanity, but to reform it. 

Far above this deep dark undercurrent, 
there was a bright, shining surface. John- 
son had made his ponderous contribution to 
letters. Frances Burney had surprised the 
world with "Evelina;" Horace Walpole, 
(son of Sir Eobert) was dropping witty 
epigrams from his pen ; Sheridan, Gold- 
smith, Cowper, Burns, Southey, Coleridge, 
Wordsworth, in tones both grave and gay, 
were making sweet music; while Scott, 



154 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Byron, Shelley added strains rich and 
melodious. 

As all this was passing, George Stephen- 
son was pondering over a daring project. 
Fulton had completed his invention in 1807, 
and in 1819 the first steamship had crossed 
the Atlantic. If engines could be made to 
plough through the water, why might they 
not also be made to walk the earth? It 
was thought an audacious experiment when 
he put this fire-devouring iron monster on 
First English wheels, to draw loaded cars. Not until 1830 
was his plan realized, when his new locomo- 
tive — " The Eocket" — drew the first railway 
train from Liverpool to Manchester, the 
Duke of Wellington venturing his life on 
the trial trip. 

In the year 1782 Ireland was permitted 
to have its own Parliament ; but owing to 
a treasonable correspondence with France, 
a few years later, she was deprived of this 
legislative independence, and in 1801, after 
a prolonged struggle, was reunited to Great 
Britain, and thenceforth sent her represen- 
tatives to the British Parliament. 

The laws against Koman Catholics which 



Railway, 1830. 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



155 



had been enacted as measures of self-defence 
from the Stuarts, now that there was no 
longer a necessity for them had become an 
oppression, which bore with special weight 
upon Catholic Ireland. By the oath of 
"Supremacy," and by the declarations 
against transubstantiation, intercession of 
Saints, etc., etc., the Catholics were shut 
out from all share in a Government which 
they were taxed to support. Such an ob- 
vious injustice should not have needed a 
powerful pleader ; but it found one in Daniel 
O'Connell, who by constant agitation and 
fiery eloquence created such a public senti- 
ment, that the Ministry, headed by the Duke 
of Wellington, aided by Sir Eobert Peel in 
the House, carried through a measure in 1828 
which opened Parliament to Catholics, and 
also gave them free access to all places of 
trust, Civil or Military,' — excepting that of 
Eegent, — Lord Chancellor— and Lord Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland. 

There is nothing to record of George IV. 
except the irregularities of his private life, 
over which we need not linger. He was a 
dissolute spendthrift. His illegal marriage 



Oppression of 

Roman 

Catholics. 



Daniel 
O'Connell. 



George IV., 
1820-1830. 



156 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

with Mrs. Fitzherbert, and his legal mar- 
riage with Caroline of Brunswick from 
whom he quickly freed himself, are the 
chief events in his history. 

His charming young daughter, the Prin- 
cess Charlotte, had died in 1817, soon after 
her marriage with Prince Leopold of Saxe- 
Coburg. She had been adored as the future 
Queen, but upon the death of George IV. in 
1830, the Crown passed to his sailor brother 
William. 
Tao-TsaT' William IV. was sixty-five when he came 
to the throne. He was not a courtier in his 
manners, nor much of a fine gentleman in 
his tastes. But his plain, rough sincerity 
was not unacceptable, and his immediate 
espousal of the Eeform Act, then pending, 
won him popularity at once. 

The efficiency and integrity of the House 
of Commons had long been impaired by an 
effete S3 r stem of representation, which had 
been unchanged for 500 years. Boroughs 
were represented which had long disappeared 
from the face of the earth. One had for 
years been covered by the sea! Another 
existed as a fragment of a wall in a gentle- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 157 

man's park, while towns like Manchester, 
Leeds, Birmingham, and nineteen other 
large and prosperous places, had no represen- 
tation whatever. These "rotten boroughs" 
as they were called, were usually in the 
hands of wealthy landowners; one great 
Peer literally carrying eleven boroughs in 
his pocket, so that eleven members went to 
the House of Commons at his dictation. — It 
would seem that a reform so obviously 
needed should have been easy to accomplish. 
But the House of Lords clung to the old 
system as if the life of the Kingdom de- 
pended upon it. And when the measure 
was finally carried the good old Duke of 
Wellington said sadly, "We must hope for 
the best ; but the most sanguine cannot be- 
lieve we shall ever again be as prosperous." 

By this Act 56 boroughs were disfran- 
chised, and 43 new ones, with 30 county 
constituencies, were created. 

It was in the contest over this Eeform Reform bui, 
Bill that the Tories took the name of " Con- 
servatives" and their opponents "Liberals." 
Its passage marks a most important transi- 
tion in England. The workingman was 



1833. 



158 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

by it enfranchised, and the House of Com- 
mons, which had hitherto represented prop- 
erty, thenceforth represented manhood. 

Nor were political reforms the only ones. 
Human pity awoke from its lethargy. The 
penalties for wrongdoing became less brutal, 
the prisons less terrible. No longer did gap- 
ing crowds watch shivering wretches brought 
out of the jails every Monday morning, in 
batches of twenty and thirty, to be hung for 
pilfering or something even less. Little 
children were lifted out of the mines and 
factories and chimneys and placed in schools, 
which also began to be created for the poor. 
Numberless ways were devised for making 
life less miserable for the unfortunate, and 
for improving the social conditions of toiling 
men and women, 
slaves While white slavery in the collieries and 

Emancipated, „ . ., ... . -■ ,-rr.,, £ 

1833. factories was thus mitigated, Wilberforce 
removed the stain of negro slavery from 
England in securing the passage of a Bill 
which, while compensating the owners (who 
received £20,000,000), set 800,000 human 
beings free (1833). 



CHAPTER XIII. 



William IV. died at Windsor Castle, and 
at 5 o'clock on the morning of June 20th, 
1837 (just 58 years from the day this is 
written), a young girl of eighteen was 
awakened to be told she was Queen of 
Great Britain and Ireland. Victoria was 
the only child of Edward, Duke of Kent, 
brother of William IV. Her marriage in 
1840 with her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe- 
Coburg, was one of deep affection, and se- 
cured for her a wise and prudent counsellor. 

On account of the high price of corn, Ire- 
land had for years subsisted entirely upon 
potatoes. The failure of this crop for sev- 
eral successive seasons, in 1846 produced a 
famine of such appalling dimensions that 
the old and the new world came to the 
rescue of the starving people. Parliament 
voted £10,000,000 for food. But before re- 



Accession of 
Victoria, 1837. 



Famine in 
Ireland, 1846. 



160 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

lief could reach them, two millions, one- 
fourth of the population of Ireland, had per- 
ished. The anti-corn measures, championed 
by Richard Cohden and John Bright, which 
had been bitterly opposed by the Tories 
under the leadership of Disraeli, were thus 
reinforced by unexpected argument; for- 
eign breadstuffs were permitted free access 
and free trade was accepted as the policy of 
England. 

Nicholas, the Czar of Eussia, was, after 
the fashion of his predecessors (and his suc- 
cessors), always waiting for the right mo- 
ment to sweep down upon Constantinople. 
England had become only a land of shop- 
keepers, France was absorbed with her new 
Empire, and with trying on her fresh im- 
perial trappings. The time seemed favor- 
able for a move. The pious soul of Nicholas 
was suddenly stirred by certain restrictions 
laid by the Sultan upon the Christians in 
Palestine. He demanded that he be made 
the Protector of Christianity in the Turkish 
Empire, by an arrangement which would 
in fact transfer the Sovereignty from Con- 
stantinople to St. Petersburg. 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 161 

That mass of Oriental corruption known 
as the Ottoman Empire, held together by no 
vital forces, was ready to fall into ruin at 
one vigorous touch. It was an anachronism 
in modern Europe, where its cruelty was 
only limited by its weakness. That such an 
odious, treacherous despotism should so 
strongly appeal to the sympathies of Eng- 
land that she was willing to enter upon a life- 
and-death struggle for its maintenance, let 
those believe who can. — Her rushing to the 
defence of Turkey, was about as sincere as 
Kussia's interest in the Christians in Pales- 
tine. 

The simple truth beneath all these diplo- 
matic subterfuges was of course that Russia 
wanted Constantinople, and England would 
at any cost prevent her getting it. The 
keys to the East must, in any event, not 
belong to Russia, her only rival in Asia. 

France had no Eastern Empire to protect, 
so her participation in the struggle is at first 
not so easy to comprehend, until we reflect 
that she had an ambitious and parvenu 
Emperor. To have Europe see him in con- 
fidential alliance with England, was alone 



162 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

worth a war ; while a vigorous foreign pol- 
icy would help to divert attention from the 
recent treacheries by which he had reached 
a throne, 
war with Such were seme of the hidden springs of 

action which in 1854 brought about the 
Crimean War, — one of the most deadly and 
destructive of modern times. Two great 
Christian kingdoms had rushed to the de- 
fence of the worst Government ever known, 
and the best blood in England was being 
poured into Turkish soil. 

It was soon discovered that the English 
were no less skilled as fighters, than as 
shop-keepers. They were victorious from 
the very first, even when the numbers were 
ill-matched. But one immortal deed of valor 
must have made Russia tremble before the 
spirit it revealed. 

Six hundred cavalrymen, in obedience to 
an order which all knew was a blunder, 
dashed into a valley lined with cannon, and 
charged an army of 30,000 men ! 

•' Forward, the Light Brigade ! " 
Was there a man dismay 'd? 
Not tho' the soldier knew 
Some one had blunder'd : 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 163 

Their' s not to make reply, 
Their's not to reason why, 
Their's but to do, and die : 
Into the valley of Death 
Rode the six hundred. 



The horrible blunder at Balaklava was 
not the only one. One incapable general 
•was followed by another, and routine and 
red-tape were more deadly than Kussian 
shot and shell. 

Food and supplies beyond their utmost 
power of consumption, were hurried to the 
army by grateful England. Thousands of 
tons of wood for huts, shiploads of clothing 
and profuse provision for health and com- 
fort, reached Balaklava. 

While the tall masts of the ships bearing 
these treasures were visible from the heights 
of Sebastopol, men there were perishing for 
lack of food, fuel and clothing. In rags, al- 
most barefoot, half-fed, often without fuel 
even to cook their food, in that terrible 
winter on the heights, whole regiments of 
heroes became extinct, because there was 
not sufficient administrative ability to con- 
vey the supplies to a perishing army ! 

So wretched was the hospital service, that 



164 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

to be sent there meant death. Gangrene car- 
ried off four out of five. Men were dying 
at a rate which would have extinguished 
the entire army in a year and a half. It 
was Florence Nightingale who redeemed 
this national disgrace, and brought order, 
care and healing into the camps. 

When England recalls with pride the 
valor and the victories in the Crimea, let 
her remember it was the manhood in the 
ranks which achieved it. When all was 
over, war had slain its thousands, — but 
official incapacity its tens of thousands! 

It was a costly victory: Eussia was hu- 
miliated, was even shut out from the waters 
of her own Black Sea, where she had hitherto 
been supreme. To two million Turks was 
preserved the privilege of oppressing eight 
million Christians; and for this, — twenty 
thousand British youth had perished. But — 
the way to India was unobstructed ! 

England's career of conquest in India 
was not altogether of her own seeking. As 
a neighboring province committed outrages 
upon its British neighbors, it became neces- 
sary in self-defence to punish it; and such 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1G5 

punishment, invariably led to its subjuga- 
tion. In this way one province after an- 
other was subdued, until finally in the absorp- 
tion of the Kingdom of Oude (1856) the 
natural boundary of the Himalaya Moun- 
tains had been reached, and the conquest 
was complete. The little trading company 
of British merchants had become an Em- 
pire, vast and rich beyond the wildest 
dreams of romance. 

The British rule was upon the whole be- 
neficent. The condition of the people was 
improved, and there was little dissatisfac- 
tion except among the deposed native 
princes, who were naturally filled with hate 
and bitterness. The large army required to 
hold such an amount of territory, was to a 
great extent recruited from the native pop- 
ulation, the Sepoys, as they were called, 
making good soldiers. 

In 1857 the King of the Oude and some sepoy 
of the native princes cunningly devised a 
plan of undermining the British by means 
of their Sepoys, and circumstances afforded 
a singular opportunity for carrying out 
their design. 



Rebellion, 
1857-1858. 



166 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

A new rifle had been adopted, which re- 
quired a greased cartridge, for which ani- 
mal grease was used. The Sepoys were told 
this was a deep-laid plot to overthrow their 
native religions. The Mussulman was to be 
eternally lost by defiling his lips with the 
fat of swine, and the Hindu, by the indig- 
nity offered to the venerated Cow. These 
English had tried to ruin them not alone in 
this world, but in the next. 

Thrilled with horror, terror-stricken, the 
dusky soldiers were converted into demons. 
Mutinies arose simultaneousl} 7 at twenty-two 
stations; not only officers, but Europeans, 
Massacre at were slaughtered without mercy. At 
Cawnpore was the crowning horror. After 
a siege of many days the garrison capitu- 
lated to Nana Sahib and his Sepoys. The 
officers were shot, and their wives, daugh- 
ters, sisters and babes, 206 in number, were 
shut up in a large apartment which had 
been used by the ladies for a ballroom. 

After eighteen days of captivity, the hor- 
rors of which will never be known, five men 
with sabres, in the twilight, were seen to 
enter the room and close the door. There 



HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 167 

were wild cries and shrieks and groans. 
Three times a hacked and a blunted sabre 
was passed out of a window in exchange for 
a sharper one. Finally the groans and 
moans gradually ceased and all was still. 
The next morning a mass of mutilated re- 
mains was thrown into an empty well. 

Two days later the avenger came in the 
person of General Havelock. The Sepoys 
were conquered and a policy of merciless 
retribution followed. 

In that well at Cawnpore was forever 
buried sympathy for the mutinous Indian. 
"When we recall that, we can even hear 
with calmness of Sepoys fired from the can- 
non's mouth. From that moment it was 
the cause of men in conflict with demons, 
civilization in deadly struggle with cruel, 
treacherous barbarism. We cannot advo- 
cate meeting atrocity with atrocity, nor can 
we forget that it was a Christian nation 
fighting with one debased and infidel. But 
terrible surgery is sometimes needed to ex- 
tirpate disease. 

Greed for territory, and wrong, and in- 
justice may have mingled with the acquisi- 



168 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

tion of an Indian Empire, but posterity will 
see only a majestic uplifting of almost a 
quarter of the human family from debased 
barbarism, to a Christian civilization; and 
all through the instrumentality of a little 
band of trading settlers from a small far-off 
island in the northwest of Europe, 



CHAPTER XIV. 

But there were other things besides fam- 
ine and wars taking place in the Kingdom 
of the young Queen. A greater and a subtler 
force than steam had entered into the life 
of the people. A miracle had happened in 
1858, when an electric wire threaded its way Atlantic cable, 

' . J 1858. 

across the Atlantic, and two continents con- 
versed as friends sitting hand in hand. 

Another miracle had then just been „ Daguerre ' s „„ 

° t Discovery, 1839. 

achieved in the discovery of certain chem- 
ical conditions, by which scenes and objects 
would imprint themselves in minutest detail 
upon a prepared surface. A sort of magic 
seemed to have entered into life, quickening 
and intensifying all its processes. Enlarged 
knowledge opened up new theories of dis- 
ease and created a new Art of healing. 
Surgery, with its unspeakable anguish, was 



170 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



First World's 
Fair, 1851. 



Death of 

Prince Albert, 

1861. 



rendered painless by anaesthetics. Mechan- 
ical invention was so stimulated that all the 
processes of labor were quickened and im- 
proved. 

In 1851 the Prince Consort conceived the 
idea of a great Exposition, which should 
under one roof gather all the fruits of this 
marvellous advance, and Sydenham Palace, 
a gigantic structure of glass and iron, was 
erected. 

In literature, Tennyson was preserving 
English valor in immortal verse. Thack- 
eray and Dickens, in prose as immortal, were 
picturing the social lights and shadows of 
the Victorian Age. 

In 1861 a crushing blow fell upon the 
Queen in the death of the Prince Consort. 
America treasures kindly memory of Prince 
Albert, on account of his outspoken friend- 
ship in the hour of her need. During the 
war of the Eebellion, while the fate of our 
country seemed hanging in the balance, we 
had few friends in England, where people 
seemed to look with satisfaction upon our 
probable dismemberment. 

We are not likely to forget the three 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



171 



shining exceptions: — Prince Albert — John 
Bright — and John Stuart Mill. 

It was while that astute diplomatist, Dis- 
raeli (Lord Beaconsfield) was Prime Min- 
ister, that French money, skill and labor 
opened up the waterway between the 
Mediterranean and the Eed Sea. It would 
never do to have France command such a 
strategic point on the way to the East. 
England was alert. She lost not a moment. 
The impecunious Khedive was offered by 
telegraph $20,000,000 for his interest in the 
Suez Canal, nearly one-half of the whole 
capital stock. The offer was accepted with 
no less alacrity than it was made. So with 
the Arabian Port of Aden, which she al- 
ready possessed, and with a strong enough 
financial grasp upon impoverished Egypt to 
secure the right of way, should she need it, 
England had made the Canal which France 
had dug, practically her own. 

Lord Beaconsfield had crowned his dra- 
matic and picturesque Ministerial career by 
placing a new diadem on the head of the 
widowed Queen, who was now Empress of 
India. His successor, William Ewart Glad- 



Suez Canal. 



Victoria 

Crowned 

Empress of 

India, 1876, 



172 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



Disestablish- 
ment of Irish 
Branch of 
Church of 
England, 1869. 



stone, the great leader of the Liberal party, 
was content with a less showy field. He had 
in 1869 relieved Ireland from the unjust bur- 
den of supporting a Church the tenets of 
which she considered blasphemous; and one 
which her own, the Eoman Catholic, had 
for three centuries been trying to over- 
throw. We cannot wonder that the mem- 
ory of a tyranny so odious is not easily 
effaced ; nor that there is less gratitude for 
its removal, than bitterness that it should so 
long have been. 

The disestablishment of the English 
Church in Ireland was one of the most 
righteous acts of this reign. Whether the 
great English Statesman will be equally 
successful in securing Home Kule for that 
unhappy land, upon which he has staked 
the final effort of his life, remains to be 
seen. 

The Irish question is such a tangled web 
of wrong and injustice complicated by folly 
and outrage, that the wisest and best-inten- 
tioned statesmanship is baffled. Whether 
the conditions would be improved by giving 
them their own Parliament, can only be de- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 173 

termined by experiment ; and that experi- 
ment England is not yet willing to try. His- 
tory affords few spectacles of its kind more 
impressive than Mr. Gladstone at 86, with 
the ardor and energy of youth, battling for 
a measure he believes so vitally necessary to 
the Nation. Although his name does not 
appear upon the short list of our English 
friends in 1860, and although he did not seem 
to deplore our threatened dismemberment at 
that critical time, — still, not even in his own 
land is more sincere homage paid to him than 
by his "kin beyond the sea," — in America. 

The work of Parliamentary reform com- 
menced in 1832 has moved steadily on 
through this reign. By successive acts the 
franchise has extended farther and farther, 
until a final limit is almost reached ; and 
side by side with this has been a correspond- 
ing increase in educational facilities, "be- 
cause," as a Peer cynically remarked, "we 
must educate our Masters!" 

So many reforms have been accomplished 
during this reign, the time seems not far 
distant when there will be little more for 
Liberals to urge, or for Conservatives and 



174 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the House of Lords to obstruct. Monarchy is 
absolutely shorn of its dangers. The House 
of Commons, which is the actual ruling 
power of the Kingdom, is only the expres- 
sion of the popular will. . 

We are accustomed to regard American 
freedom as the one supreme type. But it is 
not. The popular will in England reaches 
the springs of Government more freely, 
more swiftly, and more imperiously, than it 
does in Eepublican America. It comes as a 
stern mandate, which must be obeyed on the 
instant. The Queen of England has less 
power than the President of the United 
States. He can form a definite policy, se- 
lect his own Ministry to carry it out, and to 
some extent have his own way for four 
years, whether the people like it or not. 
The Queen cannot do this for a day. Her 
Ministry cannot stand an hour, with a pol- 
icy disapproved by the Commons. Not since 
Anne has a sovereign refused signature to 
an Act of Parliament. The Georges, and 
William IV., continued to exercise the 
power of dismissing Ministers at their pleas- 
ure. But since Victoria, an unwritten 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 175 

law forbids it, and with this vanishes the 
last remnant of a personal Government. 
The end long sought is attained. 

The history of no other people affords 
such an illustration of a steadily progres- 
sive national development from seed to 
blossom, compelled by one persistent force. 
Freedom in England has not been wrought 
by cataclysm as in France, but has unfolded 
like a plant from a life within; impeded 
and arrested sometimes, but patiently bid- 
ing its time, and then steadily and irresist- 
ibly pressing outward; one leaf after an- 
other freeing itself from the detaining force. 
Only a few more remain to be unclosed, and 
we shall behold the consummate flower of 
fourteen centuries ; — centuries in which the 
most practical nation in the world has 
steadily pursued an ideal! The ideal of 
individual freedom subordinated only to the 
good of the whole. 

The triumph of England has been the 
triumph not of genius, nor of intellect, but 
of character. It is those cross-threads of 
stubborn homely traits, the tenacity of pur- 
pose, the reluctance to change, the adher- 



176 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

ence to habit, usage and tradition, which 
have toughened the fabric almost to inde- 
structibility. These traits are illustrated in 
the persistence of the hereditary principle 
in the royal line. We look in vain for an- 
other such instance. The blood of Cerdic, 
the first Saxon "Ealdorman" (495), flows in 
the veins of Victoria. She is 38th remove 
from Egbert, first Saxon King of consoli- 
dated England (802), 26th from William the 
Conqueror (1066), and 9th in descent from 
that picturesque and lovely criminal, Mary 
Stuart (1587). There have been wars, and 
foreign invasions, — a Danish and a Norman 
conquest, the overturning of dynasties, and 
Eevolutions, and a "Protectorate," and 
yet — there sits upon the throne to-day a 
Queen descended by unbroken line from 
Cerdic the Saxon! 

Queen Victoria is undoubtedly indebted 
to the wise counsel and guidance of the 
Prince Consort in the early decades of her 
reign. Not one act of folly has marred its 
even current. She has held up to the na- 
tion a high ideal of wifehood, motherhood, 
and of domestic virtue. None of her prede- 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 177 

cessors have bound their people to them 
with ties so human, her griefs and experi- 
ences moving them as their own. We think 
of her more as an exalted type of Woman, 
than as Sovereign of the most marvellous 
Empire the World ever saw ; — its area three 
times that of Europe, representing every 
zone, all products, and every race ! 

How long England will be capable of 
sending out a vital current sufficient to 
nourish such distant extremities none can 
tell ; or whether the far-off Colonies of Aus- 
tralia, Canada, and New Zealand will in- 
crease their independent life, until they 
become detached Sovereignties like the 
United States. If that day ever comes, like 
the Mother of a generation of grown chil- 
dren, with independent homes of their own, 
— England will sit with folded hands, her 
life-work done. 

Let no American forget, that England 
before the 18th Century is as much our 
England as theirs ; that the memories of 
Crecy, of Blenheim, of Marston Moor and 
Naseby, are our great inheritance too ; that 
Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, belong to 



178 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the humblest American as much as to Vic- 
toria. 

The branch has grown far from the par- 
ent tree since the 17th Century ; and the 
England of Tennyson and Herbert Spencer 
may be only a distant cousin. She has not 
always treated us well, has not been chary 
of criticism, nor prodigal of praise, nor did 
she sympathize with us in the day of our 
peril and misfortune. But for all that — 
sharing the same great heritage of race and 
of literature, speaking in the same language 
the same thoughts and impulses, there must 
always exist between us a tie, such as can 
bind us to no other nation upon the earth. 



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